


Transatlanticism

by dbz2010



Series: Kathleen Shepard [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 22:58:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 38,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6445654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dbz2010/pseuds/dbz2010
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kathleen Shepard, the hero of the Skyllian Blitz, is the XO of the SSV Normandy when she discovers that a rogue Spectre, Saren, has discovered a Prothean beacon and a way to bring the Reapers back to their galaxy to begin their 50,000 year culling of all alien species. She must find a way to stop Saren and the Reapers from finding a way to their galaxy-even if it is the death of her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Title: Transatlanticism  
> Author: dbz2010  
> Beta: N/A  
> Series: mass effect  
> Character(s): female shepard, garrus vakarian, kaidan alenko  
> Genre: sci-fi  
> Rating: PG-13  
> Word Count: 2866
> 
> Fanfic Summary: Kathleen Shepard, the hero of the Skyllian Blitz, is the XO of the SSV Normandy when she discovers that a rogue Spectre, Saren, has discovered a Prothean beacon and a way to bring the Reapers back to their galaxy to begin their 50,000 year culling of all alien species. She must find a way to stop Saren and the Reapers from finding a way to their galaxy-even if it is the death of her.
> 
>  
> 
> Notes: I may deviate from the canon story in the game a bit depending on the situation in each chapter that I write. This first series of chapters will encompass the first game and ending just before the events in the second game.

Kathleen Shepard nibbled on the tip of her thumb as Joker navigated the Normandy towards the mass relay. She already had her doubts about this mission that much was true. What she was unsettled about was the fact that a council Spectre, a turian named Nihlus Kryik, just had to poke his nose into this mission. ‘Does a turian really have a nose?’ she thought to herself as she snuck a glance over at him.

He looked almost too calm as he stared out ahead past the humans at the computer readout in front of the pilot. She frowned slightly at his calm demeanor but the frown didn’t last for too long because the next thing that she knew Joker was coming Captain Anderson to inform them that they were approaching the mass relay. She braced herself despite the fact that she knew Joker would safely take them through the relay. It was an old habit that she had picked up on from when she was younger. She was used to flying through mass relays with her mother every time that they had to uproot from their home when her mother got reassigned to a new place.

She snapped back to reality a second time as the Normandy made it through the relay. She breathed a small breath of relief. She always worried that something might happen to them every time the ship went through a mass relay. The turian Spectre nodded his head slightly. “Good job. I am sure Captain Anderson will be pleased,” he said before he turned around and exited the cockpit.

Joker waited until the turian was out of earshot before he rolled his eyes at the comment the Spectre had made. “I hate that guy,” he muttered under his breath.

“He gave you a compliment and yet you hate him?” Kaidan asked the pilot from the copilot seat.

“Yeah, is that so hard to believe? Turians cannot be trusted especially since they invaded Earth thirty years ago. Besides, I don’t trust Spectres either. They are trouble, like to break the rules most of the time, and they have a bit of a biased on who joins the so-called club.” Joker shook his head and winced slightly as the comm chimed at him. “Yes, sir?” he asked as he activated the comm in the cockpit. 

“Report, Joker,” rang Captain Anderson’s voice a few moments later. Shepard couldn’t help but think that the Captain was all seriousness whenever he was on the comm. She knew that she had to work on that but at least the crew respected her.  
“We’ve just cleared the relay and are now heading towards our destination,” Joker relayed to Anderson. “Oh, and just a heads up, sir, I think Nihlus is on his way to you.”

“He’s already here,” Anderson replied back with a bit of disappointment in his voice. “Connect to a comm buoy as soon as we are in range. I want to send the mission report to Alliance brass as soon as Shepard’s team is off of Eden Prime.” There was a few seconds of silence before Anderson’s voice came back onto the comm. “Tell Shepard I require her presence in the comm room for the mission debriefing.”

Joker looked over at Kathleen and she rolled her eyes at him. “You worry too much. Don’t worry, Joker. I won’t let the scary turian eat me alive.” She swiftly turned around to avoid any more conversation with the paranoid pilot and she heard a snicker that sounded like it belonged to Kaidan. She rubbed her hands on her pants and tried not to bit on her thumb nail. ‘We already went over the mission brief before we left Earth. That was where we met up with Nihlus. I wonder what the Captain wants with me,’ she thought nervously to herself.

She noticed that Jenkins and Doctor Chakwas were talking just outside of the comm room. She briefly listened to what they were talking about and realized they were discussing the turian and the mission on Eden Prime. It sounded like Jenkins was suspicious of the mission and he was taking his paranoia out on the poor doctor. She wanted to chime in her two cents but decided to ignore them. She didn’t have time to get side-tracked away from her task at hand. Maybe after they were done with this mission she would talk to Jenkins about what he was talking to Chakwas so passionately. She carefully side-stepped them and walked into the comm room to find that Nihlus was the only one inside of the room.

She wanted to back out of the room but she didn’t want to appear to be a xenophobe so she continued to walk deeper into the room. “I thought Captain Anderson wanted to talk to me,” she said as she came to a stop in front of the turian.

“I was hoping I would talk to you first,” Nihlus said, his two-toned voice devoid of emotion. Kathleen raised an eyebrow at his comment but didn’t say anything. The turian saw her silence as a chance to continue talking. “I’ve noticed that Eden Prime is a beautiful planet. I am interested to hear your opinion on it, Commander.”

Kathleen hesitated for a few moments to carefully think of a reply that wouldn’t offend the turian. She shrugged slightly before responding. “I don’t know, sir. I’ve never been there. That was one place in many that my mother wasn’t stationed at before I joined the Alliance military.”

“But it has become something of a symbol for your people, Commander,” he retorted back at her. “It shows proof that your kind can stretch out from your home planet and colonize past your solar system. But is it really safe for your kind to go beyond the reach of your abilities?”

“What’s your point, Spectre Kryik? Are you trying to scare me into admitting something to you? If you have something to say, you might as well spit it out now. Sooner or later I am going to find out about what you are hiding,” she told him as she crossed her arms in front of her chest. She didn’t like the tone in the turian’s voice.

“Are you sure your kind is ready for the horrors of the Terminus systems? Your kind could be safe in your own solar system yet you insist on traveling outside your comfort zone. Take for instance Eden Prime. Is it really as safe as your people say it is?”

Right then Captain Anderson entered the room and practically strolled down to the pair of them before addressing the turian. “I think we should let the Commander into what is really going on.”

The turian nodded his head in agreement at Anderson’s statement and looked back over at Kathleen. “This mission isn’t the one that we had discussed on earth. There is something else that is going on down on Eden Prime.”

“I figured it was obvious it wasn’t a simple mission on Eden Prime. Not with a council Spectre involved. What is really going on here, Captain?” she asked as she glanced over at Anderson with a weary look on her face. She didn’t really like that important information was probably being kept from her, especially if it was information about the mission.

“This is a covert pick-up mission, Shepard. It was supposed to be kept hush-hush until we were in range of the planet. That is why the Normandy is on this assignment instead of another ship. The Normandy has stealth tech that can get us on and off the planet with virtually no detection from anyone on the planet,” Anderson explained to Kathleen.

“But why the secrecy, Captain? I mean, there is a reason why you didn’t tell me until now.”

“We wanted to make sure this information didn’t fall into the wrong hands. It was on a strictly need-to-know basis.” Anderson paused for a few moments before continuing on. “The researchers on Eden Prime found something that hasn’t been discovered since our Mars discovery years ago. They’ve unearthed a Prothean device that looks like a beacon of some sort.”

“Are you serious? A real Prothean beacon? What is it doing on Eden Prime?” Kathleen’s interest in the mission went from ‘it is just an average in-and-out mission to a discovery-of-the-lifetime mission’ kind of interest. She knew that they had gotten some information about the Protheans from the Mars archives but this beacon could explain more about them that the archives had.”

“That is why we are heading to Eden Prime. The scientists down there don’t have the technology to analyze this sort of Prothean tech but the Citadel scientists do. We can take it to them to get it analyzed after we have secured it in our ship,” Anderson explained.

“Everything that we use is based off of the Prothean technology. And obviously this discovery affects not just your species but every species in Council space so it is imperative that we get it before someone else does,” Nihlus chimed in.

“So, what did we tell the Council about this fine? We could have kept it to ourselves? “Kathleen inquired.

“Humans don’t have much trust with the Council, much less with my own kind. We view your kind as selfish and too independent. You humans need the Council’s help in deciphering whatever is in the beacon,” Nihlus stated.

“Sharing this beacon with the Council will help our already strained relations with them. We also need their help in cracking the Prothean’s code with this tech. They’ve had more time to study Prothean tech than we have.” Anderson paused for a few moments before speaking again. “Also, he is also here to evaluate you, Commander.” 

She raised an eyebrow at that statement before responding to that statement. “Why is he evaluating me?”

“The Alliance has been pushing for this for a while. We want someone that the Council can trust and I can’t think of a more qualified person than you, Commander. This is our chance to finally prove to the Council that we are ready to take a spot amongst them and you becoming a Spectre is one step in that direction,” Anderson explained to Kathleen.

“I was impressed with how you held off an enemy assault by yourself during the Blitz. You showed not only courage but incredible skill. That is the main reason why I put your name in to be a candidate for the Spectres,” Nihlus told Kathleen.

“You put my name forward without seeing me in actual combat? Also, you are turian. Not many humans like your kind after the First Contact War. Fortunately I am not one of those people but…” she let her sentence trail off for a few moments before she continued on. “To be honest, sir, you know nothing of me. Why put a stranger’s name, especially a human’s name, forward for Spectre candidacy?”

“There are some Turians that don’t resent humanity. Some do see potential within your species. It just takes a special kind of person to see that. And we, being me and others of my kind, see that you have potential to being an excellent Spectre down the road. You will do the galaxy and your own kind justice.” Nihlus paused to let that information soak into Kathleen’s mind before he continued on. “We Spectres are made up of an elite group. We only seek those with a special skill set that is rare in many individuals. I don’t care if you are a human, Shepard, just as long as you can do this job and do it correctly.”

“What if I refuse?” Kathleen inquired. “I don’t like when people make decisions for me and for my future. I’ve already had too many decisions made for me when I was younger and when my mother would bounce me from planet to planet. “

“You need to look past that, Shepard. Do this for humanity’s sake…no, do this for me. We…I am counting on you to do what is right for your sake and for the sake of our species,” Anderson explained with a hint of annoyance in his voice. Kathleen winced at the tone of voice that he spoke in to her. Of course it was all about the sake of humanity but for once she wished that people didn’t make life-changing decisions for her.

“This will be the perfect opportunity for me to see you in action, Commander. Eden Prime is one of several missions in mind that we will work together,” Nihlus said confidently. Kathleen wasn’t too sure if she would work very well with someone as skilled as Nihlus but at least she would have a small chance to show him her skills during this mission.

“Back to the mission brief,” Anderson stated, clearly wanting this mission to be over with soon so that they could grab what they had come here to get and make their way to the Citadel before their stealth systems could overheat. “Shepard, I want you in charge of the ground team. You are to take Alenko and Jenkins with you along with a few more soldiers. Your job is to secure the beacon and get it back to the ship. Nihlus with accompany you to observe how you take charge in the field.”

Kathleen nodded her head. She was confident that Nihlus would step in if he saw that her team needed an extra hand, or talon in his case, in securing the beacon. “Yes, sir,” she said with a soldier’s tone of voice. She hoped this mission wouldn’t go FUBAR before they reached the planet.

“Umm…Captain, we may have a bit of a problem,” came Joker’s voice over the comm. Kathleen groaned softly to herself. ‘Just what I really didn’t want to hear from him,’ she thought to herself. At least he was wise to give a heads up to them before they reached Eden Prime.

“What’s wrong, Joker?” Anderson asked, his voice matching the look that Kathleen had on her face. He didn’t like the words that Joker had said, either.

“Transmission from Eden Prime, sir. You really need to see it,” Joker stated before he sent the vid link to the comm room for the trio to see. All they could see was firefight and a shaky cam before a female soldier came into view and ordered the other soldier whose cam they were viewing from to get down. For the new few seconds all they could see was the tops of trees and hear more fire fight in the background. Kathleen looked over at Anderson with a worried look on her face but he was concentrating on the vid rather than on anyone’s reactions. 

Suddenly a soldier’s face appeared and informed the cam that they were under attack and taking heavy casualties. It was clear that they were losing the fight to whatever assailant was after them. The solder then went on and requested evac. The solder repeated what he had just said to the cam before he fell backwards and dead onto the ground. The cam then rotated around to the surviving team’s soldiers before it moved upward and onto a giant squid-looking ship landing on the planet. The cam then faced down at the ground as the soldier got down on the ground and then the vid went dark.

“That is the last of the vid, Captain. There has been no more communication from whoever sent that vid after that. I have a bad feeling about this, sir,’ Joker stated in a worried tone of voice.

Anderson looked hard at the black screen of the vid and requested for the vid to be reversed to 38.5. Joker complied and reversed the vid so that they could take a look at that strange ship again. Nihlus looked at it as he let his mandibles click on either side of his mouth in what seemed like a nervous tic. Kathleen proceeded to bit the end of her thumb. She didn’t like the look of that ship.

“What is the status in our approach, Joker,” Anderson ordered the pilot.

“We are at minimum seventeen minutes away from planet-side and there are no other Alliance ships in the area.”

“Alright, it is time to take us in but be fast and quiet. I don’t want that ship to even get a blip of our ship signature.” Anderson looked over at the other two. “This mission got a lot more complicated than what was originally planned. I hope you two are ready for what is down there on the surface.”

“I agree. A small team can go undetected for this mission,” Nihlus stated.

Anderson nodded his head and turned to Kathleen. “Get your gear and head to the cargo bay. Get Alenko and Jenkins on your way out before heading there.” Kathleen quickly saluted him before following Nihlus out of the comm room. She quickly told Jenkins, who was still chatting with Chakwas, before she headed to the cockpit to get Alenko. Together, the pair of them went down to the cargo bay to wait for them to get to Eden Prime.


	2. Eden Prime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kathleen Shepard didn't know what to expect from the mission after they landed on Eden Prime. She was hoping it was an easy in-and-out operation but when the Geth showed up she knew it wasn't going to be as easy as she had thought. With Nihlus dead and the beacon damaged from Saren, she wasn't sure what the council would say about the mission going south.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title: Transatlanticism  
> Author: dbz2010  
> Beta: N/A  
> Series: mass effect  
> Character(s): female shepard, garrus vakarian, kaidan alenko  
> Genre: sci-fi  
> Rating: PG-13   
> Word Count: 6382
> 
> Chapter Summary: Kathleen Shepard didn't know what to expect from the mission after they landed on Eden Prime. She was hoping it was an easy in-and-out operation but when the Geth showed up she knew it wasn't going to be as easy as she had thought. With Nihlus dead and the beacon damaged from Saren, she wasn't sure what the council would say about the mission going south.

The moment that Joker got within range of Eden Prime he activated the stealth drives. He wasn’t sure if the other ship had picked them up but he was hoping that they were out of its sensor range and hadn’t detected them already. Even though it had been more than seventeen minutes since the soldiers on Eden Prime sent the distress signal he wasn’t positive that the unknown ship had a long-range sensor.

While Joker was on the comm, he made a comment to the Captain that someone was doing some serious digging. Kathleen heard it and thought of the beacon that the people on Eden Prime found. The digging was probably because of that but she kept her comments to herself. She forced herself to listen to Anderson as he ordered them to go straight to the dig site mainly because he wanted them to be the muscle of the operation.

When Kaidan asked about survivors, Kathleen already knew the answer to that but Anderson beat her to the punch and told him that survivors was a secondary objective and that the beacon was top priority. Just then Joker announced that they were approaching drop point one. Kathleen whipped around to see Nihlus getting ready to head out alone. She had figured that he would go with them but it seemed like the plan had changed when the distress signal came to the ship.

It seemed Jenkins didn’t think the same way that Kathleen did and asked the turian if he was going to join them. The turian responded with “I move faster on my own. You need to secure that beacon and I can keep an eye out for you three if I move ahead of you.” Kathleen nodded her head. That made the most sense in her mind, too. Within moments, the turian trotted off of the ship.

“Don’t worry,” Anderson told them. “Nihlus will feed you status updates when he see fit to do so. Until then, remain on radio silence.”

Frowning, Kathleen nodded her head. She hated radio silence but if the Captain wanted that then she would have to follow his commands. “Don’t worry, sir. Nihlus can count on us to get the job done.”

Anderson shook his head. “The mission is now in your hands, Commander. Good luck.” Joker just then announced that he had made it to drop point two and Kathleen got herself ready to jog off of the ship. She just hoped it wouldn’t be another Skyllian Blitz all over again.

Within moments, the small ground team was off of the ship and heading towards the dig site where hopefully the beacon was. Immediately, Nihlus came over the comm and told them that the place where he had landed had gotten hit hard and for them to keep their guard up. A few moments later the comm cut off. Kathleen could hear gun fight but she wasn’t sure which direction it was coming from. It seemed to be all around them.

With a bit of haste she led the team towards the dig site. They came across a small stream with strange floating aliens that looked like weirdly shaped balloons. “What the heck are those?” Kaidan asked aloud.

“Oh, those are gas bags. You don’t have to worry about them. They are harmless,” came Jenkins carefree response. Kathleen winced and wished she hadn’t known the answer to that question. Now all she could picture were those things back on earth as kids’ balloons. She wondered if any of the children had taken any of these and made them into balloons.

She motioned for them to follow her as she made her way past the stream and down a narrow path that she hoped lead towards the dig site. After she did a quick scan of the stream Kathleen concluded that this was the most logical assumption since the other side of the stream was a dead end. Before they could continue on, they spotted two charred bodies on a rock on the bank of the river. “Oh god, what the hell happened here?” Jenkins asked in a slightly shocked tone of voice.

“Nothing good,” Kathleen replied. “Come on. We need to pick up the pace a bit.” As they made their way towards the gun fire (Kathleen could hear a bit of it in the direction they were heading in) they saw more charred bodies and she fought to keep her breakfast in her stomach. She hated the sight of bodies that looked like a piece of steak that had been on the grill for too long.

As they got to an inclined hill, Kathleen held up a closed fist for the others to stop behind her and she glanced around the open area with a frown. This was too open of an area to not expect an ambush. They had to be prepared in case something bad happened. After a few moments to make sure the coast was clear, she motioned for Jenkins and Kaidan to move out first. He quickly moved back and forth between several boulders before attempting to move forward as Kaidan quickly followed and hid behind a boulder to wait for Jenkins to move ahead a bit.

As quickly as they came out, two drone-looking machines fired on Jenkins, quickly killing him. Kathleen cursed silently to herself as she readied her weapon to fire on the machines that had killed one of her squad-mates. Within minutes both Kaidan and Kathleen got rid of the problem and she carefully walked over the Jenkin’s body. “Damn it,” she muttered under her breath. Only ten minutes into the mission and she was already down one person.

“It wasn’t your fault, Commander. The blasts went straight through his shields. He never stood a chance,” Kaidan told Kathleen as if sensing that she felt it was her fault that Jenkins had died.

“He deserves a proper burial as soon as we are done here,” she said in a slightly shaking voice. “I need you to stay focused on the task at hand. Can I trust you can do that for me, Alenko?” She knew that she, too, needed to stay focused but she felt better after he told her it wasn’t her fault. That got her focused back on the mission.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said as he nodded his head briefly. After taking one last look at poor Jenkins, they got started heading up the small incline towards the fire fight that they’ve been hearing since they landed on Eden Prime. They hid briefly behind the boulders and small rocks that edged the small path of the hill to get at least some cover in case more of the flying machines came out of hiding.

As soon as they could see the top of the hill, Kathleen spotted more of the flying machines and motioned for Kaidan to take cover before she hid behind a low-lying rock. She peeked over the rock every few seconds to fire at the machine and soon those attackers were as dead as the first ones they encountered.

“Damn, how many of these things are there?” Kaidan asked. Kathleen shrugged her shoulders. She didn’t even want to know if there were any ground troops on the other side of the hill thought she figured if there were flyers then there would have to be ground support as well. A few moments after Kaidan made that statement, they got a status update from Nihlus. “I’ve got a lot of burned bodies over here, Shepard. It doesn’t look good. I am going to go on ahead and catch up to you at the dig site.” The comm went dead again after that last word was heard from the turian.

After another encounter with another group of flying machines, Kathleen was beginning to lose hope that they would find the beacon at the dig site at all. It seemed that these flyers were stationed along the path that would take them to the dig site on purpose and that whoever was on the giant ship had already gotten possession of it. ‘Think positive, Kat,’ she thought to herself. ‘Maybe they haven’t gotten it onto their ship and are still transporting it. We still have a glimmer of hope left.’

Carefully they made their way to the other side of the hill and found the female soldier that had been on the distress signal vid fighting for her life against a small group of ground and flying troopers that had more than likely been the ones who had been attacking them over twenty minutes ago. Without hesitating, the pair of them rushed in to assist the soldier as she tried to hid behind cover.

Kathleen instantly recognized the ground troops as Geth. ‘What the heck are Geth doing this far out of the Perseus Veil?’ she thought to herself. ‘Now I know the flyers are Geth, too. But that ship isn’t Geth technology. How did they find something so…advanced looking?’ This mission seemed to have too many questions and not enough answers.

The fight seemed to last not as long as the other ones did mainly because the female soldier helped out as much as she could while trying to stay under cover. After the fight was done, Kathleen approached the soldier to see if she was alright.

“Thank you, Commander. I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it,” the female soldier said as soon as Kathleen was in earshot. The soldier saluted Kathleen before speaking again. “Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the 212. I am assuming you are in charge, ma’am?”

Kathleen nodded her head before answering. “Are you alright? Did others of your squad make it?”

Ashley shook her head sorrowfully. “I am fine other than a few scrapes and burns. Those will heal quickly. The rest of my squad, unfortunately, wasn’t as lucky as me. We were just patrolling when those freaks hit us. We didn’t expect it. We tried to get a distress call out but they jammed out comms. Soon after, most of my squad went down and I ran away with the rest of my squad as fast as we could with a group of those things went after us.”

“What happened after that?” Kathleen asked.

“We tried to double back to the beacon but we walked into the ambush. The one that you helped stop, actually. The rest of my squad got pinned down and forced onto some spike things. I am not sure if anyone else made it away. I think I am the only one left,” Ashley said, her voice slightly panicky.

Kathleen nodded her head, knowing full well of being the last one standing in what looked like a hopeless situation. “Don’t blame yourself for what happened. You tried your best to help them but those attackers outnumbered and outgunned you.”

“You’re right, ma’am. At least we held out position for as long as we could until the Geth overwhelmed us.” Ashley seemed to be uncertain of herself as she said this but Kathleen ignored that. She figured she was feeling an overwhelming amount of stress since the Geth started to attack her squad.

“Why would the Geth come outside of the Perseus Veil? They’ve been in hiding for over two-hundred years,” Kaidan inquired, confused as to why the Geth would be the ones attacking Eden Prime and not a band of pirates or Batarians.

Ashley was the one who came up with a suggestion for that answer. “Maybe for the beacon? I mean, that is the only thing of value that has been unearthed so far here on this planet so it would make sense that it would be the beacon. Not sure why they would want a piece of old Prothean tech. They have their own tech that they can use instead of the Prothean’s.”

Ashely paused for a few moments before pointing over to a ridge. “The dig site is just over there. The beacon was there this morning but I am not sure if it still is.” Kathleen nodded her head and motioned for the soldier to join them.

“We could use a third squad-mate,” she said to the other woman.

“Yes, ma’am. Hopefully I can get some payback for what those Geth did to my squad.”

Moments later, they headed over the ridge and towards the dig site. They had already lot some time with the Geth attacks and Kathleen was getting a little anxious about losing precious minutes that could have been spent securing the beacon. ‘Don’t worry about that now,’ she told herself sternly. ‘I am sure Alliance brass would cut you some slack considering that the Geth were involved.’

As they went down a small incline, Kathleen could see the spikes that Ashley was talking about and noticed the each of them had a body impaled on them. Two bodies seemed old but one seemed fresh. She fought again to not get rid of her breakfast as she tried to ignore the impaled bodies while they continued their way towards the dig site.

Moments after they were feet away from the dig site, another ambush of Geth popped out and attacked them. Kathleen, however, was prepared for another ambush and quickly got rid of the problem with her squad’s help. She couldn’t help but kick a lifeless Geth body as she approached where she thought the beacon was supposed to be but the space was empty. She growled under her breath. “Looks like the Geth got to it first,” she muttered under her breath to no one in particular.

“It was supposed to be here, ma’am,” Ashley said in a sincere voice. “The scientists must have moved it to the pick-up site. Not sure why they would do that without your approval. Or maybe the Geth must have moved it. Either way it isn’t where it is supposed to be. We can check out the research camp to find out if our scientists moved it or the Geth. The camp is up this ridge over here. It isn’t too far away.”

“Alright, move out.” Kathleen was starting to hate this mission more and more with each passing minute. All she wanted right now was for it to be over and to be on her way to another assignment with Nihlus. One that would most likely have him see her in action rather than splitting up like they had to do. She started to head out but hesitated. “Wait, Nihlus told us he was going to meet us here. I am not sure if we should move ahead without him.”

She waited a few moments before Nihlus’ voice came over the comm. “Change of plans, Shepard. There is a small spaceport I can see up ahead of me. I am going to investigate it while I am in range of it. Meet me there as soon as you have secured the beacon.” Before Kathleen could respond to his status update the comm went dead. She frowned at the ground and curled her hands into fists. ‘Just what the heck does he think he is doing? He should wait for backup. Damn it and damn him.’ She hoped that he wouldn’t do anything foolish and get himself caught in an ambush. He could look out for himself but he was just one turian.

They slowly made their way up the ridge and when they reached the top the camp looked in disarray. Some buildings were either on fire or completely destroyed. Only a few were intact and it looked like they were on the far side of the camp. There were more spike things and as the small squad got close to the camp, they began to lower down and the bodies that were impaled on them got off of the spikes and ran towards them. Instantly, Kathleen jumped into combat move and hid behind a destroyed building and motioned for the others to do the same.

She heard Kaidan exclaim that the bodies were still alive and Ashley ask in a shocked voice what the Geth did to them. ‘They aren’t alive, Alenko,’ she thought to herself. ‘Just puppets doing the bidding of their master. Better to put them out of their misery for good.’ She shot a few in the head and the other two quickly got rid of the others in a timely manner.

After they made sure that no more zombie-like humans were anywhere nearby, Kathleen made her way towards the two remaining buildings, Ashley and Kaidan following behind her. She made for the one on the right hand side and found it to be locked. Cursing to herself, she realized that the scientists must have hid in here and locked it in case any of the Geth decided to pursue them in their hidey-hole. With a few muttered curse words under her breath, she was able to unlock the door and the trio made their way into the now unlocked building.

One of the two humans that were in the building seemed relieved that it was another human that had entered their hiding spot instead of a Geth. The other one seemed twitchy and kept muttering stuff under his breath. The scientist noticed the three humans and practically ordered them to close the door before more Geth came back to finish the job.

“Don’t worry. You’re safe now. The Geth are gone from this area,” Kathleen told the male scientist in a calming voice. 

“Thank you,” the female scientist said after she learned that the Geth that were in the area were gone. “I thought we were done for.”

“You’re Doctor Warren, correct?” Ashley asked. “The one in charge of the excavation of the beacon. Do you know where it is? We thought it was at the dig site but when we got there it was gone.”

“We moved it to the spaceport this morning. I figured it would be safer there than out in the open at the dig site. Manuel and I stayed behind to pack up the camp when the Geth caught us by surprise. We locked ourselves in here to get away from those things. The marines sacrificed themselves to keep us safe. I just wish there was a way for me to repay them for their sacrifice.”

“No one has been saved,” Manuel, the male scientist, blabbered. “All of humanity is doomed! There will only be ruin and destruction in our future.”

“Quiet, Manuel. The commander doesn’t have time to hear about your wild-haired ideas about the end of the world,” Warren told the other scientist sternly. She turned to Kathleen and gave the commander an apologetic smile. “He is unwell and hasn’t had his medication today. He has always had a brilliant mind but he is a bit on the unstable side. Genius and madness have always been two sides of the same coin. Don’t worry. He will calm down as soon as he has had his medication.”

“No, I am not mad. I am the only sane one left. I can see out future and it looks bleak and dreary. We are all doomed with no hope of escape. We….” Manuel started to say before Warren stuck a needle in his neck and injected a clear liquid into a vein. The scientist’s eyes drooped a bit and Warren guided him to a cot.

“What will you do next, Commander?” Warren asked curiously.

“We are going to head to the spaceport. I want you to stay here until the coast is clear, then head to the spaceport and wait for us to pick you up with the Normandy. Hopefully we would have secured the beacon by then. Just wait ten minutes before leaving.” Kathleen motioned for the other two soldiers to follow her out of the building. Before she exited she could hear Warren say a word of thanks to her before the door closed behind them again.

“Shouldn’t we take them with us, Commander?” Ashley asked in a confused voice. “We could probably protect them on our way to the spaceport.”

Kathleen shook her head. “No, we’ve already lost too much time. I want to secure the beacon ASAP. If we encounter any Geth troopers along the way just blast them out of your way. We don’t have time to get slowed down again.”

“Yes, ma’am,” came the brisk reply of the gunnery chief before she followed Shepard up the path that lead away from the scientists’ camp and towards the spaceport. Right as they got to the top of the second ridge a single gunshot rang out from the area of the spaceport.

“Crap, we need to hurry up and get there,” Kathleen said in a loud voice as she picked up her pace. Kaidan followed on her heels and Ashley picked up the rear a few feet away from them. As they got a few feet towards the spaceport Kaidan pointed out something in the sky. She looked up to see the ship that had been in the vid flying away from the planet. It looked a lot bigger in person than it did in the vid. She cursed under her breath. “Damn it. I hope the beacon is still at the spaceport. I really don’t want this mission to fail because of some stupid Geth.”

“Wait, Commander, look,” Ashley said as she grabbed Kathleen’s arm and pointed at another building. “There might be more survivors.”

Kathleen tugged her arm out of the other woman’s arm and was about to say something when Kaidan chimed in. “It might be the security detail for the scientists. Maybe we can ask them what went on in this area and if they know if the beacon is still here.”

Kathleen sighed loudly before heading towards the building. “Let’s hope it isn’t a waste of our time,” she muttered under her breath. As soon as she got towards the building more Geth and animated humans ambushed them. “Let’s take care of our uninvited guests first.”

The battle lasted less than five minutes. Kaidan and Ashley quickly took care of the Geth while Kathleen concentrated on the animated humans that got too close to them. Shepard muttered a few more curse words under her breath before heading once again towards the building with a small hope that no more Geth would pop out and attack them.

When she got to the building she found that the door was locked like the scientists’ back at the camp. Muttering under her breath, she found this lock to be more difficult than the other one but a few minutes later she had successfully unlocked it. The door unlocked, opened up, and a voice rang out to them telling them to keep calm and that they were heading outside unarmed. Kathleen motioned for the other two to move back as she took five steps away from the building.

A few moments later, two men and a woman emerged from the building, the one in front with his hands up slightly in a non-aggressive manner. The woman asked if it was safe and if they were gone. Kathleen figured that the woman meant the Geth. “They’re gone. You don’t have to hide anymore.”

The leader of the small group spoke up for them. “I thought we were done for. We could hear them crawling all over the building. We owe you our lives.” It was then that the woman pipped up and mentioned something about the ship and that she thought it was over for them.

“Don’t worry. The ship left the planet. I am sure that any remaining Geth that may have been left behind will be taken care of when we head to the spaceport,” Kathleen explained to them, hoping that might calm them down a bit.  
“Yeah,” the leader said in a distracted voice. “But I am more worried about that ship. It showed up right before the attacks started. Are you sure it isn’t going to come back to finish the job on the few survivors? They might know that some humans made it to the buildings to get away from the attacks.”

“What did the ship do to make you so scared of it?” Kathleen asked, curious as to why they seemed so worried about it.

“I don’t know. I couldn’t really see it very well with me trying to run towards the buildings for my life. I know it landed near the spaceport but that’s all I remember. Oh, it did make this weird, shrieking noise in my head. Made me have a headache for at least ten minutes afterwards. I think it was some sort of signal that it produced for the Geth.” The leader fidgeted slightly as he looked at the three soldiers standing in front of him.

“It was probably a jamming signal, too. I know we got a distress signal from the soldiers assigned to this planet but the ship jammed it as soon as it landed on the planet,” Kathleen explained before getting to the question that she had been itching to ask since the surviving humans exited their building. “Do you know anything about the beacon the scientists dug up or where it is now?”

“I don’t know. We are just farmers. We are civilians trying to survive on this planet. I know I didn’t see anything of the sort come through here but we were out in the fields until the attacks started. They must have moved it before then.”

Kathleen nodded her head and cursed in her head at Ashley for wasting their time. “Thank you for your patience. Do you need any medical supplies or assistance?” The leader shook his head and Kathleen thanked them again for their time and started to head away until she heard a voice chime up from the other man who had remained silent until that moment.

“Cole, man, we don’t need our stuff. They look like they need it more than us,” the other man in the back told the leader. The man named Cole sighed and sternly told the other man that he needed to learn to shut up.

“You should let the man speak for himself. Come clean and tell me the truth,” Kathleen said as she turned around with her arms crossed over her chest. “What are you hiding?”

Cole sighed and shook his head a little bit before explaining what he was hiding to her. “Some of us have this smuggling ring down near the spaceport. Nothing too major. We needed something to supplement our income and we figured this was the best way to do that. We let the smuggling ring store their wares n our sheds for a small cut of their profits.”

Kathleen frowned at Cole. “What kind of wares are stored in your sheds?”

Cole glanced down at the ground before responding. “I found a pistol in one of the packages in the shed. I figured if those Geth freaks came back I needed to arm myself for protection. I didn’t want to die.” Kathleen frowned at him and he waves his hand a few times. “But I can see you need it more than me. So here you go.” He handed her a small pistol and she stored it on her pistol clip on her hip.

“Anything else I should know before I go?” she asked and Cole shook his head. “Really? I don’t think you are telling me the truth.”

Cole paled before handing Kathleen something out of his pocket. “Okay, I swear this is the last of what I am hiding. Can I go now?”

Ashley shook her head. “No, we need to know who is in charge of the smuggling ring, Cole.”

“Come on. He’s not bad. Besides I would never snitch on a friend,” Cole said sternly. Kathleen stared at him and he sighed. “Fine, his name is Powell. Just keep my name out of your conversation when you find him, okay? I don’t want to lose my only friend here on this planet.”

“Fine, I will,” Kathleen said with a sigh before she finally turned away from the farmers and headed towards the spaceport with Ashley and Kaidan behind her. As they reached the spaceport Kathleen could see that major fire fight had taken place. There were small fires still ablaze in random areas of the platform and parts of it had fallen off and onto the ground. “Hell,” she muttered under her breath as she made her way closer to where she hoped would be a terminal that would take them deeper into the spaceport and towards the beacon.

As she got to the top of a staircase, she spotted Nihlus’ motionless body on the ground. She quickly rushed over and pressed two fingers on the side of his neck to see if he had a pulse. His body gave out a hint of warmth but it was fading rapidly. She felt no pulse and she pounded a fist on the ground. It was then that she noticed that he was lying in a pool of his own blood. It always puzzled her that turian blood was blue.

“Is that a turian? Do you know him, Commander?” Ashley asked Kathleen in a surprised tone of voice.

“He is the Spectre that was supposed to be with us on this mission. We had to split up due to the Geth attacks on the planet,” Kaidan explained. Kathleen was thankful that he did it and not her. She wasn’t really sure if she would keep any foul language out of her mouth at the moment. Suddenly there was movement behind some crates and the three of them got their weapons out in case it was another ambush.

Moments later a guy rose above a crate with his hands over his head and yelled at them to not shoot. Kathleen lowered her weapon a bit but didn’t holster it. “What are you doing back there?” she demanded at the man.

“I was hiding form those creatures. They just came out of nowhere and I had nowhere else to hide except for here. Please, for the love of God, put away your weapons. I mean you no harm,” the man said in a panicky voice.

Shaking her head, she motioned with her pistol for the guy to come a few feet closer so that she could see if he had any weapons on hand. Confirming that he didn’t, she holstered her weapon and put her hands on her hips. “Explain yourself.”

“I am Powell,” the man explained. “I saw what happened to your friend. He got shot by another turian. It seemed that your friend knew the turian who had killed him. Your friend called the other turian Saren. He didn’t even see the bullet coming. I think your friend was convinced that this Saren guy was on the same mission as him and trusted Saren to help him with the task. I am lucky the other turian didn’t see me or else I would be dead, too.”

“Do you know where Saren went after her killed my friend?” Kathleen asked, holding back fury. Why didn’t the guy warn Nihlus about the pistol that was obviously drawn behind his back? She decided not to push her luck. She already almost lost her temper a few times already and she wasn’t sure if the Captain would lose his once he found out about the possibility that she had lost both the beacon and a Council Spectre. She was sure the Council wouldn’t forgive her for letting a Spectre get killed, either.

“He went to the cargo train that leads towards the other platform. I am sure he was going after the beacon the scientists moved to the other platform this morning,” Powell told her. “I told the scientists it would just attract trouble and look what happened? First the mother ship shows up and then the Geth attacks innocent civilians that were just trying to get away from them. I am sure I would be dead, too, if I hadn’t hid when I did.”

“Wait a minute, someone mentioned that you had a smuggling ring back here,” Kathleen said, trying to keep Cole’s name out of the equation. Though she was sure Powell would put two and two together sooner or later.

“Alright, fine. I am that guy. But it doesn’t matter anymore. My supervisor and the rest of my crew are dead. I am getting the heck out of dodge as soon as I am able to. I am done with this planet,” Powell said in a defeat tone of voice.

“Alright, when this is all over I am sure my commanding officer wouldn’t mind taking you back to the Citadel so that you can get a ride back to Earth,” Kathleen offered and Powell nodded his head. “By the way, how did you survive the Geth attacks? Your contact had to hid in a building on the other side of the ridge.

Powell sighed and rubbed his head for a few moments. “I…was taking a mid-day nap. I sometimes need a few winks so that I can make it through my shift. I was already behind the crates when the attack happened and I couldn’t really get to a safe place so I just stayed there.”

“You disgust me,” Ashley said angrily at the man. He nodded sorrowfully in agreement to the female soldier.

“Can I go now? I will wait with the others while you three get to the beacon. I am sure that Saren fellow didn’t find it. The scientists hid it in a safe place,” Powell said. He quickly went off towards where his contact was at before another wave of Geth ambushed them. Quickly, Kathleen hid behind a crate and began another round of fire fight with the Geth. She wished that this Saren didn’t bring so many Geth with him.

They quickly decimated this small group within minutes. With her assault rifle still out, she headed towards the cargo train and ran into more Geth. ‘They just keep coming. When will this mission end?’ she thought to herself. It seemed like there was a never-ending amount of Geth in the area. They quickly hopped onto the motionless cargo train and took out the Geth one by one as they made their way towards the front of the train.

She quickly activated the train and as it started towards the other platform, she mentally prepared herself for more Geth and a possible surprise for them when they got to the platform. What seemed like an eternity when it was only a few minutes, they arrived at the platform and Kathleen immediately found something troublesome. There were more Geth but situated at the base of the platform where the cargo train was docking there was a bomb. She was sure that the Geth was ordered to set the charges and figured there were a few more scattered around the other areas of the platform. “We need to disarm these as quickly as we can,” she told Kaidan. 

She quickly glanced down at the first bomb and saw that there was a five minute timer. “Alright, let’s quickly get this one disarmed. Kaidan, keep an eye out for any more of these. Ashley, you take care of any Geth that get too close.” The two other soldiers nodded their heads and quickly got to work while Kathleen focused on the bomb in front of her.

After a few muttered curse words and a love tap with her boot, she finally got the bomb disarmed in time for Kaidan to yell at her that he found another bomb. Quickly, she rushed over to him as she fired at any Geth that got in her way with Ashley right behind her. Unfortunately, it was on the other side of the platform. She hid behind a crate and quickly with Ashley’s help took care of the Geth on the other side of the platform before she headed across the bridge to help Kaidan disable the second bomb. After Kathleen took over, Kaidan quickly stood up and wandered over to another part of the platform to see if there was a third bomb.

After disarming the second one, Kathleen quickly rushed to where Kaidan was and found a third one with his help. Together they disarmed it and quickly scanned are platform and found a fourth one. “They really wanted this place blown to hell,” she muttered at Kaidan.

After the last of the bombs were disarmed, she patted her hands together and headed towards the staircase that led away from the platform. “Come on. Let’s see if the beacon is still at the spaceport and hope that it isn’t overrun with more Geth.”

Kathleen was surprised that there was only a few Geth and two animated humans guarding the beacon. They quickly took care of the sentries and walked over to secure the beacon. She didn’t like the look of it. The beacon was emitting a greenish hue and sounded like it was humming a little bit. At least Saren hadn’t taken it with him when he left in his crazy-looking mother ship. She quickly commed the Normandy to inform them that they had secured the beacon and that they required an immediate evac.

Joker responded back that Normandy was on its way. While her back was turned, she didn’t see Kaidan and Ashley moving closer to the glowing beacon. She turned back around and saw that Ashley was the only one close to her. She looked past the other woman and spotted Kaidan dangerously close to the beacon. “Alenko, stop!” she shouted at him as she noticed that the beacon was starting to pull him towards the green glow. She rushed towards him and pushed him out of the way before a bright green light engulfed her. She rose up a few feet in the air and felt pain in her whole body. Images of death and destruction filled her mind along with technology that she hadn’t seen before and bloody gore. The images lasted a mere minute before she blacked out. That was the last thing that Kathleen remembered for the rest of the day.


	3. Aftermath of Eden Prime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After waking up, Kathleen finds out that the beacon got destroyed when she somehow activated it. She finds out that the Normandy is heading towards the Citadel to face the Council who awaits an explanation as to why the mission went sour and why one of their Spectres ended up dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title: Transatlanticism  
> Author: dbz2010  
> Beta: N/A  
> Series: mass effect  
> Character(s): female shepard, garrus vakarian, kaidan alenko  
> Genre: sci-fi  
> Rating: PG-13   
> Word Count: 2623  
> Chapter Summary: After waking up, Kathleen finds out that the beacon got destroyed when she somehow activated it. She finds out that the Normandy is heading towards the Citadel to face the Council who awaits an explanation as to why the mission went sour and why one of their Spectres ended up dead.
> 
> Note: Sorry if this is a short chapter. I decided to split this up to make sure that it didn’t get too long like the last one did. All of the council meeting stuff will happen in the next chapter. I am also sorry about my horrible fight scenes in the last chapter. I will make sure to work on them a bit more in the future chapters.

Kathleen felt consciousness return to her but along with that was a splitting headache in the back of her skull. She groaned as she rolled to one side and heard a male voice call out Doctor Chakwas that she was waking up. The voice sounded really close and she figured that whoever was talking to Chakwas was standing right next to her. She recognized the voice. It was Kaidan beside her med bay bed.

She slowly rose into a sitting position and slid her legs off of the bed as she held her head with one hand. The headache seemed to recede a bit but it was still throbbing in the base of her skull. She hoped Chakwas had some pain killers for her to take.

“I hope you are feeling alright, Shepard. You really had us worried there,” Chakwas stated as she walked around the med bay to face Kathleen.

“I’ve felt better. How long was I out for?” she asked the Doctor as she tried to not concentrate on the pounding pain in her head. She felt like she had been run over several times or had one too many shots of tequila while on shore leave.

“You were out about fifteen hours. Lt. Alenko mentioned that something happened to the beacon. He didn’t really go into much detail other than it was glowing green and caused you to be elevated towards it for less than a minute,” the Doctor explained.

“I think it was my fault this all happened,” Kaidan said in an apologetic voice to Kathleen. “I must have triggered something when I got too close to it. I am thankful you pushed me out of the way though I didn’t mean for you to get caught in whatever the beacon did to you.”

“You had no way of knowing it was going to do that, Kaidan,” Kathleen explained in a soft voice. “We all didn’t know what that beacon could do. For all we knew it could have predicted the weather for the Protheans.”

‘To be honest, Commander, we don’t know if Kaidan really set it off to begin with. With the explanation that he gave it was probably already active before you got there and the two of you triggered the beacon a second time. Unfortunately we will never find out what really happened.” Chakwas explained. 

“I may have mentioned to the Doc that it exploded after the beacon let you go. That was what knocked you unconscious. Williams and I had to carry you back to the ship. The scientists gathered what they could of the beacon and brought it with them on the ship,” Kaidan told Kathleen.

Kathleen nodded her head at him. “Thanks, Kaidan.” She sighed and closed her eyes for a few moments. At least they recovered what they could of the beacon though she was sure the Council would blame her for the destruction of it. Slowly, she slid off of the bed and leaned against it, making sure not to jostle her head too much. Even though the headache had receded a little bit more she didn’t want it to come back in full force.

“I ran some tests on your while you were out to make sure that nothing harmed you while the beacon had a hold of you. Physically you are fine but I did detect that you were experiencing some abnormal beta waves in your brain activity,” Chawas said as she glanced down at a data pad in her hands. “You also had an increase in your rapid eye movement as if you were dreaming of something intense while you were unconscious.”

“It seemed more like a nightmare on my end,” Kathleen muttered under her breath. She didn’t want to relive those horrible images in her mind any more. She wished she hadn’t seen them in the first place. “I saw death and destruction. Nothing really made any sense. The images moved too fast for me to get a clear picture of what they were. I did see inorganics but I am not too sure what they were.”

“That sounds…interesting. I shall add this to my report. Oh, Captain Anderson,” Chakwas said, the last part ending in a bit of a shocked tone. Anderson had right then entered the med bay and strolled over to the two women and man as Kaidan gave the Captain a quick salute. Kathleen merely nodded her head at the Captain’s arrival.

“How is our XO, Doctor Chakwas,” Anderson asked after he stopped right in front of Kathleen. She raised an eyebrow at him. ‘He could have just asked me that. I am standing right in front of him,’ she thought to herself bitterly.

“She is going to be fine. All of her tests came by in the normal range,” Chakwas said as she handed the Captain the data pad in her hands.

Anderson looked at it briefly before handing it back to the Doctor. “Glad to hear it.” He turned to Kathleen with a slightly stern look on his face. “I need to have a little chat with you…in private.” She grimaced at his words. She knew it was about the mission and that she would have to face the music at some point. It was best to get it out of the way before they got to the Citadel. That is if they were still heading there.

“Yes, sir,” Kaidan said as he saluted the Captain once more. “I will be in the mess if you need me.” A few moments later, Kaidan exited the med bay. Chakwas quickly followed him out without any prompts from the Captain. As soon as the two of them were alone, Anderson turned his attention back to Kathleen as he leaned against an empty bed beside Kathleen’s.

“I read the report that Lt. Alenko and Gunnery Chief Williams wrote out while you were out cold. It sounds like the beacon did a number on your head, Shepard. Are you sure you are alright?”

Kathleen shrugged her shoulders a bit. “Just a headache, that’s all, and some weird dreams. I am not sure if it is correct protocol for me to write up that I had a few bad dreams due to the beacon probing my mind in my report when I get around to writing it up.” She paused for a moment before looking down at the ground. “I do feel guilty about letting Jenkins die on my watch, though. I never should have let that happen.”

“His death wasn’t your fault, Commander. You did nothing wrong. It was the Geth who killed him and not you,” Anderson kindly explained to him.

“I am pissed off that the Geth were on Eden Prime, though. I never would realize that they would come out of the Perseus Veil for something as minor as a Prothean beacon. They had more advanced tech than we could even imagine. I just wish I understood why they would go to all that effort for something like that beacon.” She sighed as she shook her head. “Intel should have known what the heck was going on down there, sir. We were ambushed several times by Geth. It was like we were walking into a trap.”

“Try to understand this situation, Commander. You said so yourself that the Geth haven’t ventured outside of the Veil. Heck, they haven’t been seen by anyone in over two-hundred years. Intel couldn’t have predicted that they would be there,” Anderson said sternly. 

She looked down at the ground with a guilty look before she remembered something. “So, what is going to happen to Gunnery Chief Williams? She was the only survivor of her squad. I am to assume that we didn’t leave her back on Eden Prime. I have a feeling she would have wanted to get as far away from there as possible.”

Anderson nodded his head. “I figured we couldn’t let a good soldier go to waste. I offered her a spot here on the Normandy and she accepted.”

“Good, she fought like a champ back on Eden Prime. She even got a few more Geth than I did,” Kathleen admitted in a slightly-timid voice.

“It seems that Alenko agreed with you on that and that was one of the reasons why I even offered the job to her.”

Kathleen bit her thumb for a few moments before finally breaching the subject that Anderson probably was here to talk to her about. “So, you said you wanted to talk to me in private. I am sure it was to ask me about how horrible this mission went down and I don’t mean about the little details, either.”

Anderson remained silent for a few moments as he folded his hands behind his back and braced himself a little bit. “I am not going to lie to you, Shepard. The council is not going to be too happy with you when we get to the Citadel. Nihlus dead, the Geth decided to come outside of the Veil, and the beacon destroyed do not make for a good mission. Though I am sure you know this by now or else you wouldn’t have asked me that question in the first place. The Council is going to be looking for blood and they might turn to you to put the blame on for this botched mission. And they are going to want answers for what happened.”

Kathleen sighed deeply. She wanted to say to hell with the Council though she couldn’t. She knew that the Council trusted Nihlus to get the job done and to make sure that she didn’t ruin the mission and her chances at becoming the first human Spectre. “I just did my job, sir. What happened was out of my hands. The Geth would have wiped out all of humans on Eden Prime if I hadn’t done my job and done it to the best of my ability.”

“I am not questioning your ability to get the job done, Shepard. But the Council more than likely is. I am going to back you with your report and make sure the Council knows that you did the damned best that you could. It is the issue with the other turian, Saren. He is another Council Spectre and they are not going to take it lightly that you are putting the blame of Nihlus on him without any solid evidence. He is a living legend in the eyes of the Council. If he has turned to allying with the Geth that means he has gone rogue and the Council is not going to like hearing a human accuse one of their top agents of doing that sort of crime.”

“There was that guy at the spaceport. Did we manage to pick him up?” Kathleen was now fully biting her thumbnail-a nervious habit that she picked up years ago during training.

“Yes we did but I am not sure if his testimony will hold up in the Council’s eyes. I am going to have him still submit his side of the story to them when we get to the Citadel,” Anderson said glumly. “The Council isn’t going to want to admit that they lost control over one of their Spectres. That means that Saren would be trouble for the entire human kind. He hates our kind more than the average turian and that is saying something.”

“I am sure he was on Eden Prime to get the beacon. It was already activated by the time I got to it and I have a good idea that he may have used it before he left on his ship that we saw in the distress signal vid,” Kathleen explained to Anderson.

“I am sure you are correct. If he has allied himself with the Geth than something big is stirring up that involves that Prothean beacon. You were there before the beacon got destroyed. Did you see any clues in your vision to where Saren might be going?” Anderson asked her.

Kathleen shook her head. “I am not really sure, sir. Just before I blacked out I had a vision. The images were too jumbled up for me to get a clear picture of anything. I saw something that could have been Geth and some other alien race that were being killed by the Geth but the race doesn’t look like any that I recognize. I am sorry I am not any help with that.”

“We need to tell the council about this, Shepard,” Anderson said sternly.

Kathleen snorted under her breath as she shook her head. “What am I going to tell them-that I had a bad dream? I can’t tell them I had this vision of the future that might bring forth the destruction of the entire galaxy. They wouldn’t believe that. They like solid evidence and this is something I can’t produce out of my mind.”

“Who knows what the council might think. Heck, that might have been what was stored on the beacon but it was too badly degraded for you to recognize anything stored on it. There might have been more information that the Protheans stored on it before the vanished from the galaxy-an ancient weapon of mass destruction or something of the sort. We are still taking what is left of the beacon to them but they need to know that Saren also got access to the information before you did. He might have gotten more from it than you.” It seemed that Anderson trusted her and wanted to back her up with her vision theory but Kathleen was sure that the Council wouldn’t trust any humans without solid evidence that they didn’t have anymore.

“I know Saren, though. He thinks humans are not worthy to be in the same galaxy as the rest of the Council races. This attack reeks as an act of war towards humanity. He will use this information along with the Geth to wipe out all of humanity from the galaxy. I will not allow him to drag out species’ name through mud any more than it already has nor shall I sit back and allow him to get rid of us like a pest.”

Kathleen hesitated for a few moments before responding to the Captain. “You’re right. We need to do something about him. I will find some way to take him down, sir.”

Anderson shook his head at her statement. “It won’t be easy. He is a Spectre, has dozens of hiding spots, and the Council on his side. We need to break his ties to them before we can go about finding out where he is hiding.

“I will find something to expose his dirty laundry to the Council. I am sure there are others who hate him as much as you do, sir,” Kathleen explained. “If we can find some evidence he has gone rogue with some help then the Council will have no choice but to revoke his Spectre status.”

Anderson nodded his head, already liking the thinking his XO was getting at before he responded to her statement. “I will send a message to the ambassador to request an audience with the Council, though I am sure they would want to talk to you anyways to hear your report in person about the Eden Prime mission. Speaking of which, I think we should be getting close to the Citadel. Go to the cockpit and tell Joker to bring us in to dock.”

“Yes, sir,” Kathleen said as she saluted him before she walked out of the med bay and towards the cockpit. She just hoped that Joker wouldn’t say anything about the mission on Eden Prime to her when she got there.


	4. Dirty Little Secret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kathleen attempt to expose Saren for the Geth and Nihlus’ death on Eden Prime but the Council dismisses the claims that she has presented to them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title: Transatlanticism  
> Author: dbz2010  
> Beta: N/A  
> Series: mass effect  
> Character(s): female shepard, garrus vakarian, kaidan alenko  
> Genre: sci-fi  
> Rating: PG-13  
> Word Count: 4308  
> Fanfic Summary: Kathleen attempt to expose Saren for the Geth and Nihlus’ death on Eden Prime but the Council dismisses the claims that she has presented to them.  
> Notes: sorry about the lack of updates. Was busy with work lately. also sorry about the horrible chapter summary.

After she exited the med bay, Kathleen did a quick glance around the mess hall and saw both Kaidan and Ashley sitting at one of the tables chatting with each other while having lunch before their meeting with the human ambassador. She wished she could stay and chat with them but she had other things to do right then. She had her orders from Anderson and she didn’t want to get on his bad side any more than she already was. As she passed by their table, she caught Kaidan smiling at her out of the corner of her eye and him telling her in passing that he was glad that she was alright.

That put a small smile on her lips thought she knew that the young lieutenant was slowly falling in love with her. She could tell when she noticed that it was him and now Ashley standing next to her med bay bed. ‘I wish I could tell him that it is only puppy love that he is feeling and that I have no feelings for him like he has for me,’ she thought to herself. She would have to worry about that later. For now she had more pressing matters to deal with.

As she headed up the stairs towards the main part of the ship, she heard the scrapping of chairs and footsteps behind her that indicated that Ashley and Kaidan decided to follow her towards the cockpit. ‘Great, that’s what I need right now is a damn audience with Joker,’ she thought to herself glumly. She didn’t want to cause a scene with them so she ignored the fact that they were slowly following her towards the cockpit.

As she got closer to Joker, he turned around in his chair a little bit to look at her. He gave her a half-smile before turning his attention back to the control panel. “You have excellent timing, Commander. I was about to bring us in to dock in the Citadel. Now we can see all of that taxpayer money go to work for us,” he said in a joking manner. The Normandy came out of hyper drive right at the mass relay that lead to the Widow system that housed the Citadel.

Through the hazy purple clouds of the nebula, the Citadel was like a shining beacon. Kathleen could see why people loved to see the sight coming into the Citadel. It truly was breathtaking. She could see Kaidan and Ashley crowing around one of the windows in the cockpit to take a better look at the gleaming space station.

“Wow, look at the size of that ship,” Ashley exclaimed as an Asari vessel sped past the Normandy as it got closer towards the docking bay area.

“That’s the Destiny Ascension-the flagship of the Citadel fleet,” Kaidan explained to Ashley. Kathleen couldn’t help but walk over and take a quick glanced at it. The ship was very impressive though she heard Joker snort at Ashley’s comment.

“It’s not that great and size isn’t really everything,” the pilot muttered under his breath. The beauty of the Asari vessel clearly didn’t impress Joker at all. Kathleen rolled her eyes at his statement. Joker noticed her eye roll and shook his head slightly. “You need firepower, too. It isn’t all about looks.”

“I am sure the Destiny Ascension can hold up very well in a fire fight, Joker,” Kathleen pointed out to the pilot. “Heck, it’s main gun could rip through our own shields if I wanted to.”

“Whatever,” he muttered under his breath as he decided to concentrate on bringing them into dock around the presidium docking bays. He quickly commed the Citadel and requested permission to dock.

Citadel control came back almost immediately and informed Joker that he was being checked for clearance. A few moments later, the clearance was confirmed and the comm was transferred over to an Alliance operator. A few moments later, the Alliance operator indicated that the Normandy was to dock in the docking bay 422 and Joker complied with a quick ‘yes, sir’ before turning off the comm and bringing the Normandy in to dock.

Joker brought the Normandy in for a smooth docking but the docking pads almost made Kathleen get off balance a little bit. She wasn’t expecting that but it seemed like she was the only one who wasn’t expecting it. This was the ship’s first time at the Citadel and yet the others seemed to be accustomed to the docking at the Citadel.

Moments later, Anderson came into the cockpit, noticed that everyone that was the ground team on Eden Prime was in there, and indicated for them to follow him towards the presidium where the human ambassador was awaiting their verbal report about the Eden Prime mission. Kathleen felt her stomach flip over a few times as she followed the Captain a few paces behind him. She didn’t wait for Ashley or Kaidan to follow her. She hoped they would notice the Captain and follow without any verbal commands. She could hear them chatting back and forth to each other quietly after they got onto the elevator so she knew that they had followed her with Anderson.

What seemed like an eternity after they left the ship, they arrived in the human ambassador’s office and Kathleen could tell almost immediately that he wasn’t in a very good mood when they entered his office. She wasn’t sure if it was because of the half-botched mission or if he was always that way.

“This is an outrage. The Council wouldn’t sit back and do nothing if the Geth had attacked one of their colonies, especially a turian colony,” the ambassador barked at a holographic image of the Council as they entered the office. She wasn’t sure why the meeting wasn’t being held in the Council chambers but at least she didn’t have to see them in person right at that moment. She didn’t like the look the turian Councilor was giving the human ambassador.

“The turians don’t form colonies on the edge of the Terminus systems, Ambassador,” the S Councilor told the human ambassador in a slightly stern tone of voice. 

“Your kind was warned of the dangers of colonizing in the Traverse and yet you didn’t heed our warnings and now you are paying dearly for it,” the Asari Councilor said, agreeing with the Salarian Councilmember.

Kathleen felt bad about listening in on the conversation the ambassador was having with the Council but it seemed that none of them had noticed that they had entered the office. She walked over to the far side of the office to take in the view of the Presidium as she half-listened to the rest of the meeting the ambassador was having. It seemed like it was towards the tail-end of the meeting because the Council was starting to get tired of the human ambassador talking to them yet the ambassador still continued to talk despite the Council’s tone of voice that indicated boredom.

“You can’t just ignore the fact that one of your Spectres may have gone rogue. What Saren did to Nihlus is not tolerable. You must do something to put a stop to him!” the ambassador roared at the Council.

“You don’t get to make demands to us, Ambassador,” the turian Councilor told the Ambassador. “I know what happened to Nihlus from your reports and there is no way that Saren could do that.”

The Asari Councilor looked over at the turian Councilor before putting in her statement. “C-Sec is already investigating your charges against Saren. There is nothing more you can do, Ambassador. It is officially out of your hands. C-Sec will bring forth their evidence at the hearing and not before then.” And with that, the Council cut off the holo-comm, leaving the angered Ambassador to deal with the Normandy crew members that were in his office.

The Ambassador looked at Kathleen for a few moments before glancing over at Kaidan and Ashley with a stern look on his face. He shook his head before addressing Anderson. “It seems you brought half the crew of the Normandy with you,” he said in a stern voice.

“Just the ground team from Eden Prime,” Anderson said, unfazed by the harshness of the Ambassador’s tone of voice. “They are here if you have any more questions for them.” Kaidan gave Kathleen a look that said ‘is-this-really-our-ambassador?’ and she nodded her head sorrowfully. Thankfully she hadn’t had to have any contact with the Ambassador until right now and she was thankful she didn’t have much interaction before the Eden Prime mission.

“I am to assume that everything is accurate in the reports, correct?” the Ambassor asked Anderson. To Kathleen it seemed that having them here in his office was a waste of his time and of theirs. 

Anderson once again ignored the Ambassador’s anger with the ground team being present. “They are accurate. It sounds like you convinced the Council to allow us an audience with them.”

“They weren’t too happy about it. The Council doesn’t like it when someone accuses one of their Spectres of going rogue and accused of treason all in the same report, especially their top agent. It won’t do us any good if C-Sec doesn’t come up with the evidence that you claim is there to pin on Saren,” the Ambassor said in a testy tone of voice.

It was then that Kathleen decided to put in her two-cents. “Then they are blind to his activities. i am not going to sit around and wait for the right evidence that can convince the Council that Saren is a traitor and that he needs to be stopped at all cost. If they won’t him then I will,” she said in a slightly harsh voice.

“Don’t you dare talk back to me, Commander,” the Ambassador snarled at her. “The Council is already on the verge of revoking your Spectre application due to the fact that Nihlus was killed on your mission,” the Ambassador warned her in a stern voice. “That mission was to prove that you could get the job done and you failed to do that. The fact that the beacon was also destroyed earned you more bad points with the Council than good ones.”

“You cannot pin the blame on her, Ambassador,” Anderson argued. “That was all Saren’t fault. The beacon was already activated by the time she got to it. Saren used it to get whatever information was on it. He had a head start on our ship. Somehow the intel on the mission got leaked to him even though it was only supposed to be confined to whoever was going on the mission.”

“Then you better hope that C-Sec turns something up on Saren or else Shepard will never qualify to be in the Spectre ranks,” the Ambassador threatened. Kathleen bristled slightly at that remark. She was starting to dislike this man more and more with each passing moment. “Captain Anderson, I need to go over a few things alone before the hearing.” The Ambassador turned his back on the small group and headed towards his small desk.

Anderson turned to Kathleen, Ashley, and Kaidan to give them instruction on what they should do next. “I want you three to meet us at the Citadel Tower. It should be on the top level. I will make sure the Ambassador gives you clearance to be up there. The hearing will probably take place within the hour so make sure you aren’t late. Dismissed.”

The three of them saluted the Captain before leaving the Ambassador’s office. Kathleen balled her hands into fists, wishing she had more of a chance to speak her mind to the Ambassador though she knew it was pointless. He wouldn’t talk to her and the Ambassador would probably say that she wouldn’t make a good Spectre if she had been able to speak her mind to him. As they walked down to the main part of the Presidium, Kathleen could have sworn she heard Ashley mutter that the Ambassador was why she hated politicians. Kathleen agree whole-heartedly with the other woman’s statement.

They passed by the Citadel VI, which prompted it to come alive when Kathleen walked past it and say an automated message that she promptly ignored. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be rude. She knew that she would have to get used to coming around this part of the Citadel if she was to make frequent trips to see the Ambassador if he wanted to give her assignments after she got made a Spectre but she didn’t have the time to mess around with the VI at that moment to ask it questions about the Citadel.

As Kathleen walked past a transport shuttle she ignored it. She wasn’t used to that type of shuttle so she wasn’t sure how fast it would take them to the Citadel Tower. Kaidan, however, decided to wander over to it and take a look at the places it could transport people to. She was a few feet away from it when she heard him call out her name. sighing, she turned around and gave him a ‘what-is-it’ look.

“This can take us directly to the Citadel Tower,” he said as he pointed to the small console next to the shuttle. She looked at the small shuttle, then at the elevator that was a dozen feet away from them, and then back to shuttle before she sighed and walked towards it. “I guess it couldn’t hurt to try it out just once,” she said as she active the shuttle and sat down in it on the driver’s side. Ashley got in the back seat while Kaidan took the passenger’s seat beside Kathleen’s seat.

Kathleen had wanted the other woman to sit next to her but it seemed that Ashley wanted Kaidan to sit next to her. ‘Great, just what I need right now-a love sick puppy sitting next to me to admire my looks for however long it takes this shuttle to take us to the Citadel Tower,’ she thought to herself.

The ride to the Citadel Tower took five minutes but that was five minutes that Kathleen couldn’t take back. She had just stared out of the windshield of the shuttle as she felt Kaidan’s eyes gazing at her. She knew that he wanted to apologize for what had happened on Eden Prime again but he didn’t say anything mainly because she knew that he knew what she was going to say to him. She would tell him that it wasn’t his fault and that no one knew what was going to happen when they saw that the beacon was glowing that crazy green color. She just wished that he would forgive himself for what happened on Eden Prime.

After the shuttle landed near the Citadel Tower, they had to go up one elevator before they reached their final destination. The shuttle didn’t make it up to the actual tower but Kathleen didn’t mind. At least in the elevator she could stand at the front of it so that she could quickly exit it as soon as the elevator stopped at their floor that they needed to go to. 

As they climbed up the stairs that lead to a small forayer of the Citadel Tower, Kathleen could see two turians arguing with each other near the water fountain that was a little bit beyond the staircase. She slowed down a bit to hear what they were saying and she realized that these were the C-Sec officers that the Council was talking about that was getting the dirt on Saren. It seemed like the one in the blue armor didn’t like Saren and that the one in the black and red armor wasn’t willing to cooperate with the blue armored turian.

As they approached the two turians, the red armored one got finished talking to the blue armored one and walked away. The blue armored turian noticed Kathleen and inclined his head at her as he turned to face the human. Kathleen swore that she felt her heart flutter a little bit but she ignored it, thinking it was probably butterflies in her stomach from the hearing that was taking place in a few moments.“You must be Commander Shepard. Garrus Vakarian,” the turian said in a polite voice to Kathleen. “I was the officer in charge of the C-Sec investigation against Saren.”

“It seems that your CO doesn’t like the fact that you are trying to find dirt against Saren,” Kathleen asked Garrus.

“Just the opposite, actually. He will be presenting my evidence to the Council though it isn’t much evidence. Your witness will be on the stand soon so I hope he is ready to testify against Saren,” Garrus said in a slightly soft voice.

Kathleen nodded. It made sense that Garrus’ boss would be the one to present the findings since he was in charge of C-Sec. She remained silent for a few moments as she gathered her thoughts together. “So, what did you find against Saren?” she asked curiously.

Garrus shook his head at the question. “Nothing really too incriminating, to be honest. Most of his work was classified and getting it unclassified is like pulling teeth with the Council. If they don’t want to reveal what that work was really about it is none of C-Sec’s business but I can sense that there was probably some shady stuff going down in those missions of his that he doesn’t want to be revealed.”

“I am guessing you don’t really like him,” Kathleen told Garrus in a matter-of-fact voice. Garrus shook his head right as Kaidan pipped up and told Kathleen that he thinks that the Council was ready for them. “Good luck, Commander,” Garrus said as Kathleen nodded her head in thanks at Kaidan.

Kathleen gave the turian a small smile before leading the other two humans towards two set of stairs, then across another forayer that was bigger than the last one, and then yet another set of stairs where Anderson was waiting for them at the top.

“The Council session has already started and our witness took the stand a few moments ago and told his recount of what happened on Eden Prime,” Anderson told Kathleen.

“Wonderful,” Kathleen said in a slightly bitter voice. She was hoping to be there when the witness took the stand but it seemed like the Council started the hearing a little early. She fell in line beside Anderson as he walked towards where the Council was having the hearing and after reaching the little platform she stopped a few steps behind the Captain to hear what the Council was saying.

On a holo-comm on a witness stand was an enlarged form of a stern-looking turian that Kathleen figured was Saren. The Asari Councilor was saying something about the Geth attack and that Saren was more than likely not involved at all in the attack. Kathleen balled her hands up into fists and frowned down at Anderson’s feet that were in front of her. Of course the Council would do anything to discredit any evidence against Saren being involved in the attack on Eden Prime.  
It was then that the Turian Councilor stated that the C-Sec investigation turned up no evidence to support the claim that Saren had gone rogue at all. She was really hoping that Garrus had found something but it was for naught. The Council was willing to push aside any evidence the Turian C-Sec officer had found aside. Kathleen was glad to hear that the Ambassador had the humans’ backs as he yelled out that there was an eye witness to the murder of Nihlus by Saren. Of course the Council ignored that, stating that the testimony was hardly any compelling proof against Saren and that the human could have been making up the entire story.

It was then that Kathleen noticed that Saren wasn’t paying attention to the Council but had it on Captain Anderson. She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms in front of her chest as the Turian Councilor asked Saren if he did do the things that he was being claimed of doing.

“Of course not,” came the harsh response from the Turian Spectre. “Nihlus was a good friend of mine and practically a brother. I helped him become a Spectre. I am not sure what those humans are up to but I am sure that Anderson is behind it like.”

That got Kathleen’s hackles up and she opened her mouth to say something but she felt a hand on her arm. She looked behind her to see Kaidan shake his head at her and she instantly calmed down. She didn’t like Saren and she knew that he was up to something but she couldn’t pin anything on him. She had to go out and find more evidence to present to the Council and soon.

Anderson had the same idea that she had and there was no one there to put him in his place. “Of course you would say that, Saren. Only a friend could get that close to Nihlus and take him out after you found out that he was the Spectre that got the mission to Eden Prime. You know what was on the beacon and that is why you were there.”

“Council, are we going to sit back and allow bad dreams as evidence against me? There is no proof that I even came in contact with the beacon. It must have already been active when the scientists dug it out of the ground and Commander Shepard destroyed it by getting too close to it,” Saren rebutted.

Kathleen looked down at the ground with a frown on her face. Of course the Council wouldn’t accept the fact that the beacon had imbedded a vision in her mind. They hardly knew what the Protheans did with the beacons or why they made them in the first place. She winced as she looked up to see the Council looking at each other with doubt on their faces.

“I am sorry but I cannot disavow Saren from the Spectres due to the lack of evidence. This hearing has now concluded. If there is any new evidence found please give it to your Ambassador to present to us at a later time,” the Asari Councilor said as she punched a few buttons on a console in front of her and the other two Council members did the same before they walked away from them and the image of Saren disappeared from the witness podium.

“Well that was a waste of our time,” Udina commented dryly. “And why did you have to be at the hearing, Captain Anderson? You know that you and Saren have some bad history between us. I told you that I wanted you to stay out of this whole ordeal. Instead you came to defend Commander Shepard who is more than capable of defending herself against the Council.”

“I didn’t want to sit back and do nothing,” Anderson retorted. Kathleen heard Anderson sigh before shaking his head a little bit. “I have a feeling that there is more evidence that C-Sec wasn’t able to get. We just need to push a little bit harder at the contacts that they had to get that evidence.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Kathleen asked. She received a scalding look from Ashley but she ignored it. She didn’t care what the other woman thought. She was going to expose Saren for the liar that he was and make sure that there was no place he could hide from her.

“I suggest you go find a C-Sec officer named Harkin. He might have some leads that the other C-Sec officer didn’t have. He can be found at Chora’s Den,” Udina suggested.

Anderson snorted at his suggestion. “Harkin is a drunkard and a fool. He got suspended last week from C-Sec.”

“Yes but he still has some connection in C-Sec that might help her,” Udina responded back in a slightly hurt voice.

“If you don’t want to go the Harkin route I suggest you go to Barla Von. He is located in the Finance District of the Presidium. He has some connections with the Shadow Broker. The Shadow Broker has a wealth of knowledge on everyone, including Saren. No classified documents go unnoticed with the Broker,” Anderson suggested, ignoring the hurt tone of voice that Udina gave him.

“Alright, thank you, Udina, Captain Anderson,” Kathleen said as she inclined her head at the two men. “I won’t take up anymore of your time.” She motioned for Kaidan and Ashley to follow her and the three of them walked down the flgith of steps to discuss what to do next.

“I know Anderson doesn’t like Harkin but maybe we can start there and then go to Barla Von if the C-Sec officer doesn’t have any viable information,” Kaidan suggested.

“Do I have to come with you?” Ashley asked. Kathleen narrowed her eyes at the other woman and Ashley held up her hands. “Why don’t you go find that Garrus fellow and have him follow you around to find that evidence you need to pin on Saren. I really don’t want to get caught up in any of this.”

Kathleen sighed and nodded her head. “Fine, you are dismissed.” Ashley gave Kathleen a quick salute before trotting to the elevator that would lead her down to the quick shuttle area to the docking area. “I guess it is just the two of us until we find Garrus.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Kaidan said as he fell in step with her as they walked towards the elevator to take them to the main area of the Presidium.


	5. Drag Me Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kathleen’s attempts to find more evidence against Saren before he can get away with his crime but what will she do when hitmen try to take down both her and the only person who can have enough evidence to pin the blame on the Turian Spectre?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title: Transatlanticism  
> Author: dbz2010  
> Beta: N/A  
> Series: mass effect  
> Character(s): female shepard, garrus vakarian, kaidan alenko  
> Genre: sci-fi  
> Rating: PG-13  
> Word Count: 1366  
> Fanfic Summary: Kathleen’s attempts to find more evidence against Saren before he can get away with his crime but what will she do when hitmen try to take down both her and the only person who can have enough evidence to pin the blame on the Turian Spectre?  
>  Notes: Again sorry about the horrible fight scenes. I am trying to get better at writing them.

It wasn’t too hard to find Chora’s Den. As soon as she entered the ward district she just had to follow the low beat of music that bleed out of the club. She gave Kaidan a look before she started heading over there. They entered the raised walkway that lead to the club when suddenly they were ambushed by two Turian assassins.

She quickly ducked behind the low wall and motioned to Kaidan to use biotics on the two Turians. He nodded his head and peaked over the wall to use Statis on the two Turians. A few moments later, Kathleen peaked over the wall and shot the two Turians in the middle of their foreheads instantly killing them. 

She stood up straight and walked over to the two would-be assassins and checked them for anything to indicate if it she was the intended target or if the assassins were ordered to kill anyone who entered Chora’s Den. She found a data pad on one of them with detailed instructions from Saren to take her down.

“Fucking idiot,” she muttered under her breath as she stowed the data pad away in a little pouch she had on her hip. She turned to Kaidan who had caught up to her.

“Why would Saren order a hit on you if he wasn’t sure that you would follow through with finding more evidence against him?” Kaidan asked in a worried voice.

“The thing is he might think that I am like Anderson and won’t let this issue go no matter the lack of evidence that the Council thinks that we may or may not have,” Kathleen said in a bitter voice. “And to be honest I am going to have to agree with Saren’s thinking. Taking me out will be the only way that he can get away with this scot-free and I have no intentions of letting him off me so easily. Come on. We need to talk to Harkin to find out if he has any sources inside of C-Sec and maybe the location of Garrus,” she said before she strolled inside of the den.

The instant that she walked inside, the music seemed to double in volume. The only thing that kept the majority of the music from bleeding out of the club was the thick walls but the walls weren’t thick enough to keep some of the music inside of the club. She glanced around the club before spotting a human in C-Sec uniform and she walked over to him with Kaidan trailing behind her.

The moment that she noticed Harkin walking up to her, she knew that he was going to be trouble. He had a smirk on his face and she couldn’t help but shudder a little bit. She stopped just short of his table and gave him a stern look.

“C-Sec officer Harkin?” she asked him as she raised an eyebrow at his look.

“Hey, beautiful. Don’t you look like a pretty little gal,” Harkin said in a creepily honeyed voice. “Why don’t you park your butt next to me and I can have a little taste of you.”

Kathleen wanted to slap the stupid out of him so badly but she stopped herself from doing that. “I don’t think you can see anything with my armor on.”

“I love a woman in uniform,” Harkin responded as he patted the chair next to his. Kathleen shook her head and crossed her arms in front of his chest. Harkin sighed and shook his head before resigning to being content with her standing in front of him. “So, what is a pretty little lady like you doing in a shit hole like this?”  
“Looking for some leads for the Saren case C-Sec took on a while ago,” she said, trying to sound as professional as she could.

“The only person that I know who was working on that case was a Turian named Garrus Vakarian. He was supposed to have presented his findings to the Council today,” Harkin said, his voice sounding a little whiney.

“He did do that but I need to find him. Do you know where I can start looking for the turian?” Kathleen hoped that Harkin knew where the Turian would more than likely be hanging out around this time of the day.

“Why would you want to talk to him? I am sure there are other people you can talk to about that case,” Harkin said in a sly voice.

“You just told me….you know what. Forget it. I can find him myself,” Kathleen said and she turned around to start to walk away when she heard him say “Alright, you win” to her. She spun around with a smug look on her face and Harkin sighed and glared at her.

“He may have mentioned that he found some new evidence against Saren at a little clinic not too far away from here near the Marketplace. If you hurry you can catch him. I am not sure why he would go there but he said he had a lead with the person who runs the clinic. Don’t say that I told you that information. I really don’t want to lose my job with C-Sec,” Harkin said, finally caving into her demands.

“Thank you,” Kathleen said before she hurried out of the club before she went deaf from the loud music.

“Not so fast. Don’t you want to know why your Captain is so obsessed with taking down Saren?” Harkin said as he pulled Kathleen back towards the table.

“We never told you anything about Captain Anderson,” Kaidan said in a low voice to the C-Sec officer.

“If you are finding evidence against Saren then you can bet your ass that your precious Captain Anderson is involved. Don’t you want to know why the Turian Spectre doesn’t like your Captain that much?”

Kathleen tugged on her arm as she pondered what Harkin said. Of course she was curious but it wasn’t any of her concern. “Not my problem,” she hissed through her teeth at the man.

“Come on, sweetheart, I am just trying to look out for your well-being,” Harkin told her. “Let me tell you the little tale of your Captain.” He cleared his throat and stared at Kathleen who was still trying to get free from his grasp. “Once upon a time a little N7 soldier named David Anderson was on the list to becoming Earth’s first Human Spectre. He worked very hard and soon he got that title. The ceremony was kept hush-hush because the Council wasn’t sure how the other species would react to a human being made a Spectre. Everything was going on just fine and dandy until Saren came along and ruined everything for him, or so Anderson says. He blew a mission that both Anderson and Saren were on and got civilians killed in the process. Your precious Captain Anderson blew his chances of staying a Spectre and so the Council had no choice but to revoke Anderson of that hard-earned title. And ever since then your Captain has been bitter towards the Turian. The Council redacted the entire mission though I managed to find out through a few, eh, sources of mine.”

“You’re lying,” Kathleen hissed. “The Captain would never hide this valuable of information from me.” A tiny voice in the back of her mind, though, doubted her words that she spoke to Harkin. Deep down inside she knew that Anderson must have had a reason to keep this information from her.

“You can ask your Captain next time you see him. I bet you that he will dodge the question faster than you can hiccup the alphabet drunk.” And with that Harkin let her arm go. “You can go now. I bore of your presence and my drink is getting warm.”

Kathleen felt her face flush a bit and she stormed out of the club with a bewildered Kaidan following after her. She her him ask her why she stuck around long enough to hear Harkin’s wild tale but she ignored him. She needed to find Garrus and ask him where his new source of information against Saren was located.


	6. The Run and Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title: Transatlanticism  
> Author: dbz2010  
> Beta: N/A  
> Series: mass effect  
> Character(s): female shepard, garrus vakarian, kaidan alenko  
> Genre: sci-fi  
> Rating: PG-13  
> Word Count: 7751  
> Fanfic Summary: Kathleen found Harkin and got some undesirable information about Anderson along with the whereabouts of Garrus Vakarian. She has to hurry, though, to get to him because her gut says that something bad is about to happen to Garrus’ contact if they don’t get to him/her in time.  
>  Notes: none

Kathleen hurried as fast as she could to get to the little clinic that Harkin had told her to find Garrus at. She wondered why he would be there when it could possibly be a human clinic if Harkin knew the location of it. ‘Don’t worry about that now,’ she told herself sternly. ‘Just focus on finding Garrus and then you can ask him yourself why he was at that clinic.’

On her way up the stairs from the lower Market to the upper Market, she heard her voice being called out and she sighed inwardly to herself as she spun around to see who was yelling at her. She spotted a soldier in teal and maroon fatigues waving her over and she complied.

“Oh, wow, it is really you,” the soldier said in a happy-go-lucky way. “Commander Shepard, the hero of Eden Prime, it is an honor to finally meet you.”

Kathleen tilted her head a little bit to one side and gave him a quizzical look. “Do I know you?” she asked him slowly. She knew that the news of Eden Prime must have been leaked already so she didn’t bother to ask him how he knew about that. She just hoped that the news reporter didn’t botch the facts about the mission.

“Oh, sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I am Conrad Verner. I am a huge fan of yours ever since you made news that you were the only survivor of the Skyllian Blitz.

“Uh, thanks, I guess,” Kathleen said in a hesitant voice. She didn’t really like that this soldier was idolizing her for surviving something that killed her entire squad plus some civilians. She wasn’t really proud of herself for the Skyllian Blitz. She had only done her job in protecting the few civilians from the Batarian raiders.

“Hey, before you go on your mission to save the world or some sort of heroic deed that you need to do, can I get a picture with you? I need to show my wife that I meet the famous Commander Shepard. She is going to love it,” Conrad asked, his body bouncing up and down like a child begging for a sweet.

Kathleen nodded her head and Conrad put an arm around her, held up his omnitool and snapped a quick picture of the two of them. “Thank you so much, Commander. I need to get this to my wife right away.” And with that Conrad hurried away from them.

“Well that was interesting,” Kaidan commented blandly.

“I swear if you bring this up to anyone, Lt. Alenko, I will have your balls in a vice grip for a week,” Kathleen hissed at her before she started towards the clinic again. She heard him mutter a ‘yes, ma’am’ to her as he hurried to catch up to her. She flinched at those words but she didn’t want to chance him spouting out to anyone that she had a crazy fan boy at the Citadel.

The walk to the clinic seemed to take longer than it should have. Kathleen was waved down again but this time by a reporter. The reporter, who introduced herself as Emily Wong, explained that she needed to get some information about corruption within the Citadel and asked if Kathleen could help her out. After agreeing, she was finally let alone to get to the clinic.

From outside, she heard hushed voices inside the clinic that seemed to be demanding someone to give them the location of a Quarian. ‘That is odd. I wonder why a Quarian is on the Citadel’, she thought to herself. Not wanting to waste any more time, Kathleen opened the door to confront the people inside of the clinic.

Once inside, she spotted Garrus crouched behind the low-hanging wall that separated the lobby area of the clinic from the main area and she instantly knew that something was going on. She looked over the wall to see the main doctor in charge of the clinic surrounded by some thugs in red fatigues. She frowned and pulled out her assault rifle when she noticed that the thugs had caught sight of both her and Kaidan’s entrance in the clinic.

She trained her weapon on the leader’s chest as she side-stepped carefully towards the main part of the clinic, keeping in mind that Garrus was probably doing the same thing except that he was sneaking around instead of being obvious with his motives. The main leader grabbed the doctor and held his pistol up to her head.

“Who are you?” the thug asked in a very demanding voice.

“Someone you do not want to cross right now,” Kathleen said as she motioned with her weapon to let the doctor go. The thug frowned but didn’t comply with the nonverbal command. “Really now, can’t we all just get along?”

“Like hell we can get along,” the thug said as he tightened his grip on the doctor. It was then that Garrus decided to come out of hiding and put a bullet right in the lead thug’s head. All hell broke out after that as Kathleen and Kaidan commenced a firefight with the remaining thugs in the clinic while Garrus carefully got the doctor to cover as he helped with some cover fire.

The fight seemed to last forever but in reality it lasted ten minutes. As Kathleen put a bullet in the remaining thug’s head, she walked over to Garrus with a stern look on her face as she stowed away her assault rifle.

“You sure know how to make an entrance, Vakarian,” she said in a slightly harsh tone of voice.

“You came along at the perfect time to give me a clean shot to their leader,” Garrus said. Kathleen noticed that there was a hint of smugness in his voice and she intended on calling him out on that.

“You do know that if you hadn’t gotten that shot just perfect the poor doctor here would be dead and I would have been here for nothing,” she said as she leaned a little bit to one side with her hands on her hips. She swore she saw the Turian flush a little bit and she smirked a little bit. “You do have a good aim, though, so just don’t be too cocky in the future.”

“I’m sorry, Commander. I wasn’t thinking,” he said before he turned to the doctor. “Are you alright, Doctor Michel.”

“Yes, I am fine. Thank you…all three of you…for saving my life from Fist’s thugs. I was sure I was a goner until you showed up,” the doctor said as she rubbed her hands together in a nervous gesture.

“Can you tell me why those thugs were holding you captive in here?” Kathleen asked the doctor in a worried voice.

“They were after the Quarian I was treating a few days ago. She said that she had information about Saren that she needed to get to C-Sec but she got jumped after she got here. I had barely enough time to patch her up and get her fever down when she scurried away to meet up with Fist today. I had wanted to keep her an extra day but she said that two days was enough time for her to heal up. She said that Fist had a connection with the Shadow Broker and that the Broker wanted the information that she had on Saren, too, for a wealthy price.” The doctor looked over at Garrus. “Will you go find her? I am worried about her. She didn’t really leave in the best of health but she insisted that she was fine.”

“Don’t worry, Doctor Michel, we will find her,” Garrus said as he motioned to Kathleen and Kaidan. “Right, Commander?”

Kathleen nodded her head in agreement. “Wherever this Quarian is, we will find her.”

“I know someone else who wants to go after Fist,” Garrus told Kathleen. “A Krogan that got arrested by C-Sec about an hour ago for threatening Fist right outside of Chora’s Den.”

“We must have just missed him, Shepard,” Kaidan said. “We were just at Chora’s Den less than a half an hour ago to talk to Harkin.”

Garrus snorted. “Ah, so that is how you found me so fast,” he said. “At least Harkin did something good for once in his life.”

“Right,” Kathleen said sarcastically. “I bet that is the only good thing he has done so far with his life other than being born.” Shaking her head she looked over at Garrus and noticed that he looked nervous. “Is something wrong?”

“It’s just that…Fist was working with the Broker but he decided now that he wants to side with Saren. The Broker wasn’t too happy when he found out about that. I am betting that meeting that Fist has with that Quarian is a trap to get the information that she has on Saren.” Garrus looked over at the doctor. “Did the Quarian say what time she was having that meeting with Fist?”

Doctor Michel shook her head. “No, just something about mid-day but that’s it. I am sorry I wasn’t any more help.”

“You were plenty of help, Doctor,” Kathleen said, her voice the gentlest it has been in her life. She hoped that helped with the poor doctor’s nerves. “Come on. Let’s go get this Krogan. It is nearly mid-day and we need to get to Chora’s Den soon if we are to make it to this meeting that the Quarian has.”

The three of them walked out of the clinic and Garrus immediately pointed to a staircase that was just beyond the end of the clinic. “There, that is the fastest route to C-Sec,” he said as he made his way towards the stairs. Kaidan gave Kathleen a look but she ignored it as she followed the Turian towards the stair.

“Lead the way,” she said when she caught up to Garrus. Within minutes, they had arrived where they had started their day-in the main lobby of C-Sec. Over on one side of the lobby Kathleen could see a Krogan surrounded by a few C-Sec officers who weren’t too happy that they had to arrest the Krogan. The Krogan wasn’t too pleased to have been arrested, either, and were waiting for the officers to decide on whether or not to lock him away.

She started to head over there when Garrus cut her off. “Why don’t I handle this, Commander,” he stated to her. It wasn’t really an order or a demand but Kathleen didn’t want the Turian C-Sec officer take control of her mission.

“It’s fine. I’ve dealt with Krogan before,” she said before she side-stepped Garrus and continued her trek towards the Krogan. It seemed to her that the Krogan was barely listening to what the C-Sec officers were saying to him. As soon as the Krogan caught sight of Kathleen, he shoved the nearest C-Sec officer out of his way, muttered a quick ‘yeah, yeah’ at the officer, and strolled the few feet left between him and Kathleen.

“What do you want? I’ve done nothing wrong to you humans,” the Krogan asked in a demanding voice.

“A little birdie told me that you have it out for Fist. I have a proposition for you-you take me to Fist to help me find someone and I will let you deal with Fist however you like,” Kathleen said as she planted her hands on her hips and gave the Krogan a smirk.

“Ha, I would love to but these shit-slinging pyjaks wouldn’t like it very much,” the Krogan said, adding a chuckle to the end of his statement.

“Don’t worry, Wrex. I will take care of those officers for you,” Garrus said before he walked over to the three officers that were lecturing the Krogan a few moments ago.

Wrex nodded his head and turned his attention back to Kathleen. “So, who is this person that you are trying to find that Fist may or may not have?”

“A Quarian that may have vital information to pinning something big on Saren,” Kathleen said with the smirk still on her lips. “Trust me. This will be worth your time and effort, big guy.”

Wrex chuckled again for a few moments. “Yeah, that it will. You seem like you lead an interesting life…” he stated, giving Kathleen a knowing look that asked the question of her name.

“Ah, right. Commander Shepard,” Kathleen said as she nodded her head.

“So you are the big hero of the Skyllian Blitz. I never would have guessed a tiny human like you to take on a whole battalion of Batarians by herself.” Wrex looked over at Garrus who have seemed to have smoothed things over with the other officers. “It looks like we should head out soon, Shepard. What time did you say this Quarian was going to meet Fist?”

“Soon, Wrex, very soon,” Kathleen said before she turned her attention to Kaidan. “Kaidan, I want you to go back to the Normandy and inform the Captain that we may have some new evidence to present to the Council. Tell him I will meet him at Ambassador Udina’s office in about an hour with the Quarian.”

“But Shepard,” Kaidan started to say but he quickly shut up after Kathleen gave him a glare.

“Don’t give me lip, Lieutenant. Now go,” she said. Kaidan gave her a brisk salute before he trotted to the elevator that lead up to the docking bay that the ship was docked to. “Come on. Let’s move out before Fist decides to make the meeting happen before the allotted time.”

Kathleen opted to take the Citadel Rapid Transit to cut down on the time it would have taken them to get to the club. They arrived outside of the Wards and Kathleen led them with a brisk walk through the wards and towards the club. The one thing that Kathleen noticed this time was the lack of music coming out of the club.

She pulled out her assault rifle and nodded at Garrus. “It is too quiet here. The last time I was here the music was so loud I could hear it all the way out here.”

“You’re right. It seems like we are walking into a trap,” Garrus said. “Well, not too much of a trap since you sensed something was wrong but still I don’t like the feeling I am getting in my gut right now, Shepard.”

They snuck up the raised platform and when they got to the door Garrus and Wrex flanked it before Kathleen tapped the door open. Almost instantly there was gunfire. Kathleen ducked down to avoid a potential headshot and she shot the attacker in his knee before finishing him off with a headshot of her own.

“Careful, they have heavy ammo weapons,” she told the other two as she spotted one Krogan with a shotgun.

“My kind of fun,” Wrex said in an amused tone of voice. Kathleen rolled her eyes and concentrated on firing at Fist’s thugs after she ducked behind an overturned table just inside the doorway of the club. Garrus followed right behind her and crouched beside her while Wrex just opening fired away at the thugs without bothering to duck behind anything. It seemed that the pitiful gunfire from some of the pistols that a couple of the thugs had just bounced off of a biotic shield that the Krogan had made around himself the moment that he had entered the club.

The firefight didn’t last long with the Krogan taking most of the kills. It seemed like Wrex was in a blood-rage or that he really wanted to see Fist and all of his thugs dead. Within minutes, the club was full of dead thugs and they moved on towards the back where Fist’s office was located. They encountered another group of mercenaries though it was a smaller group than the one out in the club. Within minutes that group was taken care of and Kathleen led both Garrus and Wrex into Fist’s office.

At first Kathleen though the office was empty and that Fist had fled out into the Wards but after closer examination she spotted the club owner cowering behind his desk. She nodded at the two security drones that hadn’t been activated and Wrex quickly took care of them with two blasts from his shotgun. That scared Fist out of his hiding spot and he quickly popped out from under his desk with his hands in the air.

“Alright, I give up. I will tell you everything I know,” he said in a shaky voice. Kathleen could see that the man was shaking where he stood and she was surprised that he hadn’t wet himself from the sound of the shotgun.

“You can tell me where the Quarian went to,” she said in a slightly harsh tone of voice. All of those mercenaries were dead just because one guy was scared of one Krogan that had made a few death threats towards him. At least she hoped that they were just threats.

“What Quarian? I haven’t seen her at all,” Fist said before he realized what he had said and gave a look that Kathleen translated to ‘oh god, I fucked up royally’.

She crossed her arms in front of her chest and gave Fist a glare. “I didn’t mention the gender of the Quarian. So I am guessing either you guessed the Quarian’s gender or you are outright lying to me. I am going to go with the latter since you look like you are going to piss your pants any minute now,” she said in the same tone of voice that she used a few moments earlier.

“I swear, I didn’t mean to harm her in any way,” Fist said as he sat down in his desk chair. It seemed that the tiny man’s knees were about to give out on him. “I just…umm…arranged a meeting for her with the Shadow Broker down in the Wards not too far away from here. It is supposed to take place within the hour.”

“Nobody meets with the Broker,” Wrex said, his voice unusually calm. “I had to go through an agent that was a mouth-piece for the Broker.”

“Well, she didn’t know that and now she won’t because she has information on Saren that is valuable to the Broker. That Quarian won’t know what hit her,” Fist said, ending the statement with a bit of a chuckle. “Such a shame, too, since she was a pretty one. I’ve never meet a pretty Quarian before.”

Kathleen frowned at the words that came out of Fist’s mouth. She didn’t think that Quarian deserved to be thought of like that. It sounded very sexualized and dirty to her. Kathleen did think of them as the alien version of Gypsies that were back on Earth but she didn’t like the way that Fist had said that she was pretty. It felt pretty creepy and sexualized. She growled under her breath and turned to Wrex. “So, do you still want to kill him?”

She ignored the look that Garrus gave him as the Krogan chuckled under his breath. “Oh, yeah, Shepard, I do. I really do want to kill him,” he said in an overly excited tone of voice. She nodded her head once at him and Wrex took out his shotgun again and aimed it at the tiny man. Ignoring Fist’s cries of pleading for his life, Kathleen walked towards the exit and motioned to Garrus to do the same. She knew that she had given the Krogan non-verbal permission to kill the bar owner but that didn’t mean that she had to be in the room with Wrex while he did it. She grabbed Garrus’ arm gently and guided the Turian out of the room when Garrus just stared at her in a confused way. They walked to the main bar area to wait for Wrex and Kathleen took a seat in a chair that had managed to not get damaged in the firefight. 

The pair of them was silent for a few moments until Garrus decided to break it. The Turian cleared his throat and stood beside Kathleen as he looked down at her. She felt her heart flutter briefly before she hid her emotions behind a calm mask. “Yes, Garrus?” she asked in a slightly curious tone of voice.

“I was thinking,” he started to say before he hesitated for a moment. “I was hoping as soon as we get the information to get Saren out of the Spectre ‘club’ that I could join you in finding him.” 

Kathleen blinked a few times as she tried to process what he had said. Was this a dream come true? Did he really want to join her on the Normandy? “You would give up your career in C-Sec to follow me to the ends of the galaxy to find Saren?”

Garrus nodded his head as he placed a talon on her shoulder. “I feel like I owe it to you to show you that not all Turians are like Saren. There are some that do like humanity and would do anything to see your kind join us on the Council. Sure the Turian Council member is a jerk but he has always been like that. He was a General before he was a Council member and that was what got him the spot on the Council in the first place. Besides, I wouldn’t exactly be giving up my career. I can tell my unit chief that I will be pursuing Saren with you. I am sure he won’t mind at all.”

Kathleen gave him a quizzical look but nodded her head slightly to indicate that she approved of his thinking and reasoning behind him joining her on the Normandy. She heard someone clear their throat behind her and Kathleen half-turned around to see that Wrex had joined them in the club with his shotgun still in his talons.

“I am joining you, too, Shepard. I want to see this bastard Saren die for what he has done,” Wrex said in a stern voice. "Besides you need a bodyguard. It seems like you get shot at more often than I do and that says something. I am a mercenary. I expect to get shot at. You are with your military and should think before you shoot...or get shot at."

"Fine but don't get surprised if a few of my crewmates gets jealous that I am going to allow non-humans onto the Normandy. Also I need to get permission from Captain Anderson about having the two of you on the ship but I am sure he won't mind," Kathleen said before she started for the door. "Come on. We need to get to that meeting before it takes place. I want to make sure this Quarian stays alive. We need the information that she has to prove to the Council that Saren is a traitor and a turn coat."

"Are you even certain this meeting is going to take place?" Garrus asked. "Fist may have just been leading us away from the true location of it."

"I know Fist and when he is backed in a corner like this he is more than likely to tell us the truth rather than risk getting a bullet in his groin," Wrex said with a chuckle. "Besides, this is our only chance at getting the bastards who are setting up this meeting. I am not entirely sure that the men that the Quarian are seeing are truly the Broker's agents."

"Then we better hurry. Now, according to the coordinates that I managed to hack from Fist's omnitool while he wasn't looking the meeting place is...wow, it is really close," Kathleen said as they exited the club and walked down the elevated walkway that lead back to the wards. "The meeting location is down this hallway," she said as she pointed towards a closed door to her left as soon as they got back into the wards.

The trio trotted towards the door and Wrex opened it with a bang of his fist. Garrus went through the door first with his sniper rifle raised slightly in case they encountered any bodyguards just outside the door. Kathleen slowly followed behind and Wrex took up the rear to guard their backs.

Garrus gave the signal for all clear before continuing down the long, narrow hallway that lead towards the main housing area of the Wards. Kathleen followed a few steps behind him and Wrex waited a good thirty seconds before taking up the rear again. Ahead of them about a hundred yards away Kathleen could see a few thugs circling around a seemingly helpless Quarian. She figured that the Quarian was the one that she was looking for and she got her assault rifle in position to fire at any of the thugs in case they decided to attack.

She couldn't hear the conversation but she could tell that the Quarian was agitated by the way that she was rubbing her talons together. She wished she could hear the conversation that was going on between the supposed Shadow Broker agent and the Quarian but she didn't have the skills to hack into the Quarian's omnitool. It was a fluke that she was able to hack into Fist's and get the actual location of the meeting.

She stopped in her tracks as soon as she saw the Broker agent touch the Quarian and she saw her flip out a bit but instead of lashing out at the Broker agent, she tossed something that resembled a smoke grenade at the other two agents that were standing away from the Quarian and tried to get away but the first agent grabbed her arm.

Kathleen decided that enough was enough so she targeted the supposed agent and shot him three times in the chest, just barely missing the Quarian by a few inches. She winced as she realized how close she was to puncturing the Quarian's suit but she didn't have time to think about that when the other thugs pulled out their guns. Two of the three went down with bullets in their heads and Kathleen realized that Garrus had headshot them with his sniper.

She smirked and took out the last thug with her rifle as she walked past the slightly stunned Quarian before the thug could escape. Kathleen holstered her weapon and turned to the Quarian to apologize when she felt the Quarian wrap her arms around her chest in a loose-gripped hug.

"Keelah, I thought I was a goner. Thank you for saving me, whoever you are," the Quarian said to Kathleen.

"Commander Kathleen Shepard of the Systems Alliance," Kathleen responded back as she wrapped an arm gently around the waist of the Quarian. She was surprised to feel how thin she was under her arm but she didn't say that aloud. A few moments later the Quarian broke the hug and took a few steps away from Kathleen.

"How did you find me?" she asked as she looked at Garrus and Wrex curiously.

"We went to Fist because we were told that you were heading there to arrange a meeting with the Shadow Broker with information about Saren. But you weren't there so we questioned Fist about where you were and he told us you were going to be here," Kathleen explained.

"That bosh'tet sold me out. He told me that the Shadow Broker was going to be here but instead all I got were his thugs," the Quarian said.

"Don't worry about Fist. This big guy took care of him," Kathleen said as she jutted her head in Wrex's direction.

"Thank you so much," the Quarian said as she bowed down to Wrex briefly. "I hope you got any information about him that you could before you came over here."

"Don't worry. We will here in a bit. Right now we need your help. The Council needs the information that you have and I can pay you to get it from you," Kathleen said as she pulled out a temporary credit chit for the Quarian but the Quarian pushed Kathleen's hand into a fist to cover the chit when she saw it.

"I will give the Council anything for you since you saved my life," the Quarian stated. "I just hope that I have enough evidence to put that bosh'tet away for good."

"I am sure it will be enough for the Council to boot him out of the super-secret Spectre club," Kathleen said with a hint of a chuckle in her voice. "Come on. I told a fellow Alliance soldier that I was going to meet him at our Ambassador's office once I got you so that he can hear the evidence that you got."  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Less than an hour after rescuing Tali from the Shadow Broker's thugs, the mismatched group walked into the Ambassador's office to see Udina furious at Kathleen. Behind him was Captain Anderson and Kaidan. Kaidan looked like he had a guilty look on his face and Anderson had a blank look. Kathleen shook her head and turned her attention to Udina. "I am guessing Lt. Alenko told you that we would be coming here with more evidence against Saren?"

"I don't understand why you didn't come yourself to tell me that you had found something new to pin against Saren. And I don't think you understand the severity of the situation that we are in right now. The Council will just dismiss everything that we toss at them to make Saren look like he is the bad guy," Udina said in a harsh tone of voice. Kathleen noticed that Udina had taken notice of Tali and his face went from neutral to disgust in a few seconds flat. "And who is this Quarian?"

"My name is Tali'Zorah nar Rayya," Tali started to say but stopped when she noticed that the human Ambassador wasn't paying attention to her anymore. Kathleen narrowed her eyes at Udina and the Ambassaor paled a little bit as he turned his attention back to the Quarian to half-pay attention to her.

"Go on, Tali," Kathleen said as she crossed her arms in front of her chest. She ignored the look that she got from Anderson. She knew that she would be having a stern talking to from him after this was all over but for now she was pleased with herself that she managed to make Udina listen to Tali for the moment.

"As you know, my people created the Geth. I have learned that a number of them have been spotted outside of the Perseus Veil for the first time in about four hundred years. My pilgrimage is to research more about the Geth and to get information about how they function in order for my kind to defend themselves against the Geth in case we were to ever get our numbers up to take back our home world. I raided a small patrol on a Terminus System planet and managed to get some data from its memory core."

"I thought the Geth wiped that clean when their physical body got destroyed," Anderson stated.

Tali nodded her head. "That is true but since my people created them I was able to get a small cache of information from it before the rest self-deleted. It takes quite a bit of skill and talent to do this. I have a great number of hours spent attempting to do this to at least a dozen Geth. This is the first time I have been successful in gaining some information from a destroyed Geth body."

"What did you find?" Anderson asked. Udina merely stared at Tali as if she was a disease in the room and that annoyed Kathleen. In silent protest, she slid over to Tali and stood next to the Quarian as Tali went through her omnitool to get the information that she had gotten from the Geth.

"Just a little bit of a conversation that the Geth had heard but I think this will help you with what you need it for," Tali said as she pulled up the recorded conversation.

The small group listened as they heard Saren's voice echo out from the omnitool as he was talking to someone in a room that he was in. The tone of voice indicated that Saren was pleased with what he was doing. Another voice answered Saren's and it sounded female in tone. The clip ended and Tali put the sound clip in standby mode on her omnitool.

"That is definitely Saren but I don't recognize the other voice," Anderson said as he rubbed his chin.

"It can't be any humans. Saren obviously hates our kind," Udina said in a bitter voice. "Either way, I need to get this evidence to the Council. I am going to send them a message stating that we are going to meet them in the Citadel Tower in an hour. Shepard, I want you to bring the Quarian with you so that she can show the evidence to the Council."

Tali narrowed her eyes at the Ambassador but she remained silent when Kathleen gently nudged her in the side. Kathleen nodded her head and quickly saluted both Anderson and Udina before she grabbed the crook of Tali's arm and gently guided her out of the Ambassador's office with Wrex, Garrus, and Kaidan following behind her.

"What was that all about?" Tali asked Kathleen.

"Don't worry about Udina. He always has had a stick up his bum for as long as I can remember. The previous Ambassador wasn't as bitter as he was but she got old and tired of being just an Ambassador so she retired and Udina took up the position. I just wish there was someone that was better qualified but at least he is making things a little better for us on the Citadel," Kathleen said.

"We can at least take a small break from people shooting at us and grab something to eat while we wait for the Council to get in session," Garrus said.

As if to echo him, Kathleen's stomach growled and she blushed a little bit before she nodded her head and let Garrus lead them to a food stall that had both human food and dextro food for both Quarians and Turians.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Less than an hour later, Kathleen climbed the stairs that lead to the Council meeting spot at the Citadel tower with Tali and Kaidan trailing behind her. She was happy to be back here with more substantial evidence against Saren. At least now she had something good to pin on Saren. She hoped that the Council wouldn't patch Saren into the meeting like they did last time. That was something she didn't expect them to do.

When she got to the top of the staircase, she spotted Anderson and Udina talking softly to each other and she felt her stomach fall to her feet. She hated it when people talked behind her back when there was something important on the line and she knew that Udina was probably talking to Anderson about the fire fights that had taken place in the Wards.

'Worry about that later, Kat,' she thought to herself sternly. 'Don't let Udina get under your skin. You are better than he is.' Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to walk the few feet that separated her from the two men and she put on a fake smile at Udina.

"So, is the Council ready for the new evidence?" she asked in a fake chipper tone of voice.

"They aren't too thrilled that we found new evidence so early on in the day but they have agreed to meet with us," Udina told her. "At least you are on time. Last time you were three minutes late."

Kathleen frowned at this for a few moments before letting that emotion disappear from her face and replaced it with a blank look. "At least I am getting better at getting around the Citadel since this is my first visit here."

She noticed Udina pale a bit as he realized that she was correct in that statement but Kathleen didn't focus on him for more than a few seconds after she said it. Instead, she strolled towards the raised platform that lead towards the Council meeting area and waited before the Council took their spots behind their podiums. She was shocked that all of them were present and that they didn't bring up the image of Saren where he had been the last time she was up here.

She forced herself to claps her hands behind her back to prevent her nervous habit from getting the better of her. She knew it wasn't polite to be biting fingernails or thumbs in the presence of a higher authority but sometimes she couldn't help but to do it. This time she would keep her nervousness hidden behind a calm face.

Tali stood beside her as Udina approached the platform and began to talk an elaborate speech to the Council. Kathleen tuned it out almost immediately after Udina opened his mouth and she watched the Council carefully to see their reaction to Udina but all she could see were still faces. It seemed that the Council had the same reaction to Udina that she did.

After a few minutes, Udina motioned to Tali to approach and Kathleen watched as the Quarian walked a few feet towards him before she played the sound clip for the Council. A few moments later, the clip ended and instead of putting the clip in stand-by mode Tali closed it entirely.

"We are going to need a copy of that file, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya," the Asari Councilmember told her in a calm voice. "There is without a doubt that the voice on that file is Saren's. Also I recognize that last voice. It belongs to one of my kinds Matriarchs-Matriarch Benezia."

"So, you admit that one of your kind is working with Saren?" Udina asked.

"She may have been coerced into working with him," the Asari Councilmember said. "Whatever the reason I am sure she was just saying what Saren wanted to hear from her. Either way we cannot deny that Saren was involved with the incident on Eden Prime. From this moment on Saren will be marked as a traitor and his rank of Spectre has been revoked."

"That isn't good enough," Udina barked at them. "You know that he is still out there. Something needs to be done to get him to face justice for what happened on Eden Prime."

"We aren't denying that he did something horrible on your colony, Ambassador, but there is no way that we can go after him without tipping him off that we are going after him. He could be at a number of places and now that he doesn't have the resources that a Spectre has to get what he needs he is going to have to suspend whatever plans that he has until he can get it," the Turian Councilmember said harshly, his two-toned voice rumbling deeply in his throat.

Kathleen cleared her throat and the three Councilmembers turned their gazed at her. "There is another way that we can get Saren. All you need is one ship that is fast and can get in and out of situations before the enemy can figure out what happened." She smirked slightly as she looked over at Udina.

"No, that is out of the question. There is no way humanity is ready to join the rank of Spectre," the Turian Councilmember snapped.

"Come on, Councilmember. This is a chance for us to help you out. Humanity gets their Spectre and a spot on the Council and you get a traitor that is hell-bent on destroying the galaxy," Kathleen said in a sweet voice. "Just think on it. For now, you have evicted Saren from the Spectres."

The Asari and Salarian Councilmembers looked over at the Turian Councilmember briefly before the Turian nodded his head. The three of them then punched in a code in their consoles and the Asari Councilmember nodded at Kathleen. "Commander Shepard, please step forward."

Kathleen gazed nervously at Anderson and, after seeing him nod in approval, she walked over to the platform and Udina took a few steps back to that Kathleen was alone on the platform. She stared at the Councilmembers while they tapped a few more codes in their consoles.

"Commander Shepard, from this day forward you are the first human Spectre. From the reports that Nihlus managed to send to us before his untimely demise he was able to report that you are worthy to be given this rank. You have the resources that you may use to aid your search for the traitor Saren. We wish you good luck in your journey," the Asari Councilmember said. "This meeting is now adjourned."

The humans and non-humans that have gathered around for the meeting departed and Kathleen walked slowly to the group behind her.

"I want to see you later when you have the chance to break away from any party that you might have to discuss things with you," Udina said before he strolled away from the group. Anderson shook his head before turning his attention to Kathleen.

"Congratulations, Shepard," he said to her. "I, too, need to talk to you but that can wait for a different date. For now rest up and eat something. You look too thin." And with that Anderson left making the group drop down to three.

"It is okay, Kathleen," Tali said as she patted Kathleen's arm gently. "If you need someone to help with the engines of your ship may I come with you? I can also have some useful information about the Geth and how to destroy them."

"First we need to get a ship," Kaidan said. "I know that Anderson wouldn't want the Normandy to go on any mission like that but now that you are Spectre I am sure you can borrow it from time to time to find out where Saren went."

"Or maybe I can ask the Turians kindly if they can make another Normandy-class ship for me," Kathleen said. "I am sure Garrus has some connections on Palaven that he can use."

Just then a soft chime rang out from her omnitool and she opened it up to find that she had a new message. She quickly read it and sighed softly. "It seems that Udina doesn't want to wait for me to go to him. Come on. We need to meet him in the docking bay in fifteen minutes. 

Both Kaidan and Tali nodded their heads and the three of them walked towards the elevator that would lead them down to the cab station so that they can take one to the docking bay area.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Less than fifteen minutes later, the trio exited the elevator that lead up to the docking zone where the Normandy was docked. Beside the Normandy were Anderson and Udina. It looked like the two of them had been arguing since Udina had a bigger frown on his face than normal. He caught sight of Kathleen and he turned around to face her.

"Anderson isn't happy with this outcome but it is the best that the two of us can come up with in such short time," he said in a bitter voice. “I also highly suggest that you seek out Doctor Liara T’soni. She is somewhere in the Artemis Tau system. There are also reports coming in of Geth attacks on Feros. I am sure the Council will have some assignment for you as well.”

"Sir, can you elaborate on what our fine Ambassador is trying to tell me? About the ship part, sir, and not the missions part." Kathleen asked.

"I am giving you the Normandy, Shepard," Anderson said in a tired voice. "It is time for me to step down from venturing around the galaxy and settle down where I can be of use. I will be on the Citadel for the time being but after I have gotten my affairs in order here I will be returning to Earth. I am not sure how long that is going to be so if you have any questions and are in the area I can have a little meeting with you."

Kathleen shook her head at him as he was talking. "No, I can't take the Normandy from you. This ship is yours. I could have found another way to procure a ship that is like the Normandy."

"You aren't taking her away from me. I am giving her to you. I know this feels bad to you but trust me when I say that I need a break from this whole space exploration gig that I've been doing for ages. The crew already knows you and you have, and I quote, 'the best damned pilot in the Alliance'. I know that you already agreed to take on a few non-humans on this mission so you are going to need this ship. The Alliance soldiers will do anything to aid your search and if that means having non-humans they won't question you." Anderson clasped a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry about me, Shepard."

"Does it have to do something with you and Saren having history?" Kathleen asked.

"Did Harkin say something about that to you?" Anderson asked. "Don't answer that. I can guess that he did say something to you about it but he didn't really go into much detail if you are asking me about it." He glanced over at Udina who nodded his head and left them alone. After the Ambassador left in the elevator, Anderson sighed and continued talking. "Let's just say that Saren ruined my chance at becoming the first human Spectre. A mission went foul and I was left with all of the blame. I am not ready to tell you the entire story but if you do come back to the Citadel I will tell you."

Kathleen nodded her head and watched Anderson walk away from her and left in the elevator. Shaking her head, she turned her attention to Tali and Kaidan before she smiled warmly at them. "Let's go catch us a turn coat."


	7. Highway to Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kathleen's first stop after being inaugurated as a Council Spectre is to track down Dr. Liara T'Soni but things aren't what she expected when she arrives on the dig-site planet as she runs into Geth. (part 1 of 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: I am doing away with my usual notes and going with author notes instead. Sorry about the long delay with this chapter. I had a hard time finishing it and I figured it was worth splitting up this chapter into two since it was starting to get a little long

"Everyone, hold onto something," Kathleen said as the Mako landed with a loud thud on the lava-encrusted path that served as their landing platform. From the front of the Mako, she could see that there was lava surrounding the path and she knew that she had to be extra careful to not make the Mako go into it. That was going to take a lot of effort on her part to guide the Mako down the path and not let it stray away from the path.

"Umm...Shepard," Garrus said from the back of the Mako. "Do you want me to drive?"

Kathleen winced at his words and she looked back at both Garrus and Kaidan. They were the only ones brave enough to go with her on the planet after they did a scan of it and found that it wasn't very stable. There were volcanoes everywhere on the planet and it looked like it didn't have much ocean on it. At least they had found the dig site that Doctor T'soni was on after they did only a few scans of several planets in the first system that they got to.

"I'll be fine, Garrus. Trust me," she said as she flashed him a smile before she turned her attention to the controls. 'Alright, let's not mess this up. You've driven the Mako before. Just not in this type of situation or environment. How hard can it be?'

Apparently it was harder than she realized since the first ten seconds after she started up the Mako and making it move forward it started to veer towards the lava. She quickly straightened out the controls and moved the Mako at a slow pace until she got a wall on her right side. It was only then that she picked up the speed a little bit but not by much. She was still a little scared of the lava on the other side.

After an hour of driving, Kathleen slowly started to get used to driving but she could sense that there was tension building up in the back end of the Mako. She knew that her driving was making them lose valuable time that they didn't have at the moment to get to Doctor T'soni. It was Kathleen's pride that was getting in the way of them gaining a valuable asset but she didn't care. Just as long as they got to the dig site in once piece she was fine with losing an hour or two of time.

It seemed like the other two didn't think the way that Kathleen did because after getting past another bend that Kathleen had to take slowly, Kaidan decided to speak his mind to her. "Umm...Shepard, do you think I can take the helm? I know I don't have much more experience with driving the Mako than you do but it seems like you are purposefully taking this drive a lot slower than you really should," he said in a concerned tone of voice.

Kathleen rolled her eyes at the console in front of her before she stopped the Mako before it could veer towards the lava. She swiveled around in her chair to face him with her arms across her chest. "So, Alenko, you think you can do better than me trying to navigate through this lava field without trying to get the Mako to nose-dive into the death lake? I would love to see you try." She got out of the chair and pointed to it with both her hands while she stared at Kaidan.

Kaidan paled a little bit before he shook his head. "Umm...nevermind. It seems like you are getting the hang of maneuvering the Mako. Just pick up the pace a bit, Shepard, or else we will die an old age on this planet."

Kathleen tutted softly before she got back into the chair, strapped herself in, and swiveled the chair around to face the console again. Within moments, the Mako started up again and Kathleen, with renewed confidence, picked the pace up for the Mako up to twenty mph, the fastest the she was willing to take the Mako at without her losing control of it.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
After they had cleared the last bend, Kathleen could see that the path widened up a bit and the pools of lava were farther apart than back where they had landed. 'Why couldn't Joker pick this spot instead of the other one? This could have been a way bigger landing spot for the Mako.'

All of a sudden a few unusual-looking ships zoomed over the Mako and headed towards where they were heading. "Damn it," Kathleen muttered under her breath.

"Is everything okay up there, Shepard?" she heard Garrus ask in a concern tone of voice.

"Oh, yeah, everything is fine," she said sarcastically. "The enemy just got ahead of us and probably dropped off a few obstacles in our way but other than that we are going to get there just after they get Doctor T'soni."

She heard a grumble from both men behind her and she shook her head. "Just giving you guys a heads up in case you feel a few bumps." She paused for a moment as she spotted a huge, four-legged Geth in front of the Mako. "Speaking of which, hold onto something." She ignored the complaints from behind her as she revved the Mako up to its full speed and ran over the large Geth with the vehicle. She grinned evilly as she maneuvered the Mako towards a second large Geth and ran it over a few minutes later. From behind her she heard a splatter of something wet and a groan from what sounded like Garrus. She immediately regretted her decision to ram the Geth and she stopped the Mako to look behind her. She saw a wet spot and Garrus gave her a sad look.

"Sorry," she said in a low voice to him. "Next time I will warn you not to eat anything if I am in charge of driving the Mako."

She turned back around as she heard him chuckle under her breath at her comment. She felt guilty of making Garrus lose his lunch on this important mission. He probably needed the energy that the food would have given him but at least he didn't get tossed out of the Mako when she had ran over the large Geth.

After running over the giant Geth a few more times to make sure it was dead (much to the displeasure of Garrus and Kaidan that were in the back area of the Mako), she finally declared it 'dead as a doornail' and continued the trek towards the dig-site. "Hey, Joker," she asked over a secure comm to the Normandy. "Why didn't you let me know that there was Geth on the ground?"

"Shit, there are? Damn, we didn't pick any up on our sensors when we dropped you off on the planet," Joker responded back in a very shocked tone of voice.

"I thought you would have been all over the sensors like flies on shit, Joker," she said in a slightly humorous tone of voice. She quickly changed it to a serious tone as she stared ahead of her as the Mako got to a large cliff that she was certain that she wouldn't be able to drive over. "So, it seems like the Geth have some sort of cloaking tech. I wish I knew what else those blasted flashlight heads had tech-wise."

"You and me both, Kat," Joker said. "Hey, be safe out there, okay? I want you to come back alive, with or without this Doctor T'Soni."

"I will try, Joker. It might not be in one piece but I will try to come back alive."

"Hey, don't joke about that sort of stuff. I know what happened to you during the Skyllian Blitz. I just don't want another one of those to happen. I know you have Vakarian and Lt. Alenko to help you but it will help ease my stressful mind if you came back preferably in one piece and not riddled up with bullets in your body."

"I will make no promises," Kathleen said before she cut off the comms. She didn't want to hear any more sappiness coming from her pilot. It was already stressful enough knowing that the Geth were trying to get to Liara T'Soni. She turned around in her chair and unbuckled her seatbelt. "Alright, gentlemen," she said as she gave them both a wink. "Looks like we are going to have to go on foot to find Doctor T'Soni. Her dig-site shouldn't be too far away. I'd say a few clicks or so but be on the lookout for any Geth."

"Yes, ma'am," Kaidan said as he got out of his harness, picked up his weapons, and gingerly left the Mako with Garrus following behind him quickly after the turian picked up his sniper rifle (the only weapon that Kathleen had noticed that he had brought with him). She looked down at the dark blue spot on the ground of the Mako that had already dried and mentally told herself that she would have to clean that up after they get back to the Normandy. She wasn't going to let anyone else do it. Slowly, she gathered her weapons (a shotgun and an assault rifle) and got out of the Mako, leaving it vulnerable to getting hi-jacked by anyone who wanted to steal an Alliance vehicle on this hell-hole of a planet.


	8. Saving Dr. T'Soni

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Geth, geth and more geth. Just what Kathleen wanted. Part 2 to rescuing Liara T'Soni. Kathleen and co. finally make it to the dig-site but it seems like the Geth beat them to the punch. Will they be able to save Liara and make it off of the planet in one piece?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the long delay with this chapter. writer's block hit me hard. next chapter shouldn't take me long to put up since I have that one done along with half of the one after that. Hopefully I can go on either a weekly or bi-weekly update schedule after this chapter. Sorry it is so long. Hopefully the next couple of chapters won't be as long as this one is.

The walk up to the initial dig-site was slow going and nerve-wracking...at least it seemed like it to Kathleen. She didn't know who or what might jump out from behind the many boulders and out of the small pits that the scientists had been digging in. She jumped a few inches when she felt a hand on her shoulder and she quickly raised up her assault rifle that she had in her grasp at what had grabbed her to see Garrus backing away from her slowly.

Taking a deep breath, she lowered her weapon and gave him a measured look before shaking her head slowly.

"Sorry, Shepard," he said in a nervous voice. "I didn't mean to startle you like that. You don't have to be so tense. I am sure that any Geth would have spotted us by now. We aren't exactly trying to stick to the shadows. We are trying to get to the dig-site in one piece, remember?"

Kathleen sighed as she remembered the half-promise that she had made to Joker. "Right," she said as she rested her assault rifle loosely in her hands. "I am pretty sure that if there were any Geth out here they would have already been shooting at us." She tilted her head to one side and listened carefully to the sounds in the general area. "This is strange. I would have expected to hear digging but I hear nothing. I wonder if Doctor T'Soni is out here alone or if the other archeologists left to go on holiday."

"Whatever the reason I am pretty sure we need to hurry up and find her and fast," Kaidan said as he sidled up next to Kathleen. "I am pretty sure we don't want the Asari to get in Saren's grasp. I know that Matriarch Benezia is her mother but I am not certain that she can protect her own daughter from whatever bad influence that Saren has on his followers."

"Right," Kathleen said as she started moving again but this time at a faster pace. "Let's go. I am sure that the main dig-site is up that hill." She pointed to the hill with her assault rifle and she heard a few groans from behind her. She didn't like the look of the hill either but she had been up steeper when she was younger and on an unknown planet that her mother had been assigned on years ago. "Come on." She picked up the pace a bit more to the point where she was more jogging than walking. At least it was making getting up the hill a bit better.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
After they had gotten to the main dig-site, Kathleen realized that this was only the tip of the dig-site iceberg when she spotted stairs that let up to an underground facility that lead underground. She realized that Doctor T'Soni must be inside but she wasn't really certain about it. After giving orders to spread out and search for the Asari, she looked around the area that she had assigned herself for what seemed like an eternity to find nothing but old Prothean relics that were either too damaged to take back to be analyzed or a lot of dirt pits that held nothing. Sighing, she walked back to the stairs and waited for the other two to get back.

Kathleen could tell immediately that the other two had found no sign of the Asari and she sighed softly to herself. _'It's okay, Kat,'_ she told herself sternly. _'If she isn't out here then she must be underground. I hope that she is at least safe.'_

"So, what now?" Kaidan asked.

"Now, we go into the belly of the beast," Kathleen said as she rubbed her hands together as she gave the two males a devious grin.

"Umm...Shepard, I think your dementia is showing," Kaidan said, his face paling slightly.

Sighing, Kathleen shook her head and started to climb the stairs. "At least we didn't get ambushed by Geth out here," she said in a serious tone of voice. "I am starting to get really sick and tired of seeing them and we only saw them on Eden Prime and a brief encounter right before the dig-site so far. These flashlight heads are really started to grind on my gears."

"You and me both, Shepard," Kaidan admitted to her. "I am pretty sure we might be ambushed inside, though. Should I erect a shield around us just in case?"

Kathleen shook her head. "Not until you see them, Lieutenant Alenko. I need you to save your energy in case these ass-wipes come as us in waves rather than in a full-frontal attack. Who knows how many levels there are to this underground dig-site."

She paused briefly in front of the door and, with a bit of elbow grease and cursing under her breath, she managed to get the door open. Garrus had offered to help her but after hearing her first few curse words (a few of them were in a language that he didn't recognize but Kaidan told the confused Turian that she was speaking in German) he stood back and let the Commander open the door herself. 

"Where did you learn German, Commander?" Kaidan asked her in a curious tone of voice. Kathleen remained silent for a few moments as she listened for any movement in the long, narrow tube that lead down towards a second door before responding. 

"You learn a lot of curse words growing up around different crew. I am a spacer kid. I moved around a lot as a kid. Never stuck around anywhere longer than a year and a half-two year max."

"I take it you didn't have a tradition way of learning biotics," Kaidan asked. 

"Not really. I mean I learned it but not from a school. Mainly picked it up from older kids and from a few Asari. Those Asari kicked my butt a few times but I learned a lot from them."

"So, you went to school where? I know you and your mother moved around a lot and that meant that you didn't get the chance to make that many friends," Kaidan started to ask but he was cut off as Kathleen held up a hand as she started to head down the narrow tunnel.

"I might tell you later but not right now. We are on a time crunch and I really don't want Saren to get his grubby talons on Doctor T'Soni." She didn't want to voice her opinion on why she didn't want Saren to have the Asari. She didn't want Kaidan or Garrus to make it seem like she was paranoid about the Asari probably being on Saren's side.

"Yes, ma'am," came the timid response from behind her.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Kathleen crouched down near the top of the stairs that lead down into the dig site that she was certain the Asari was in. She could see the shadow of at least one Geth at the bottom of the stairs and she frowned slightly at the sight of it. She was hoping to not run into anymore of those cursed things but it seems like they beat her to the dig site. She half-turned Kaidan and motioned for him to crouch down next to her.

"Alright, so it looks like those flashlight heads beat us to the dig site but from the looks of it I am pretty sure they haven't found Doctor T'Soni yet. At least that's what it looks like," she said in a whisper to him. "Now, we need a game plan on how to get past those things. Do you have any ideas?"

"No but it seems that Garrus does," Kaidan said as he nodded his head behind Kathleen. Kathleen mentally slapped herself as she willed her body to turn around in time for the Turian to jump from the top of the steps all the way down to the bottom with a live grenade in his free talon. She widened her eyes as she quickly pulled up a Biotic barrier around herself and Kaidan as a burst of debris rained down from the explosion from below them.

"That was a little overkill, Garrus," she said as she stood up and surveyed the small crater that was at the bottom of the stairs. She could see a slightly dazed Garrus beside it with smoking armor. "Now, what have we learned?"

"Not to use all five of my grenades at the same time for three small Geth?" he said in a slightly sheepish tone of voice.

Kathleen sighed as she shook her head. "Five for three Geth? Yeah, Garrus, overkill. But we at least got rid of the guard Geth. I am pretty sure that there are more enemies further on in." She eyed the Turian carefully. "Maybe next time save one for our escape. Who knows what is down there lurking with the Geth."

"More Geth?" Garrus suggested with a shrug.

"Other than more Geth," she said as she headed towards an elevator. "Now, let's see where T'Soni is so that we can get the heck out of here. I really don't like the feel of this place at all. It is giving me bad vibes."

"You and me both, Commander," Kaidan said in agreement with her.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
The elevator came to a screeching halt three-quarter of the way down the shaft. Kathleen could tell that today was still going to be a horrible day. At least it hadn't downgraded to downright disastrous quite yet but there was still time for it to downgrade to that level. She looked over the side of the elevator and did a few quick calculations in her head before she hopped over the side of it. She heard the protests of the men behind her but she ignored them as she cushioned her fall with a quick display of Biotics.

"Sure, show off a bit, Shepard," Garrus said. "What about those that can't use Biotics?"

"I don't know what you are talking about, Vakarian," Kaidan said as hopped out of the elevator and did the same thing that Kathleen did but not as graceful as she did as he landed next to her with a loud grunt. 

"Oh, sure, just leave the powerless Turian up here by himself," Garrus said as he paced by the elevator door slowly. "No, don't bother. I am sure I can find my own way down."

"Garrus, don't act like that," Kathleen said with a slight growl in her voice. "Just open the elevator door and..." Her words were cut off as a rain of bullets came out of nowhere. "Shit," she managed to utter out as she ducked behind the railing. "Just sit tight and don't go anywhere," she yelled up at Garrus.

"Yeah, like I can go anywhere," he kindly reminded her as he got out his sniper rifle and backed up to the back of the elevator to get away from the rain of bullets that were getting dangerously close to him.

'Damn it,' Kathleen thought to herself as she peered over the top of the railing to see a trio of Geth along with two of the drones on the opposite side of the large cavern of the dig site. 'At least we are at the bottom of this pit. And there are only thre...shit, nevermind.' Three more Geth appeared out of a small hole in the ground that she hadn't noticed until that very moment. 

"Orders, Commander," she heard Kaidan say beside her.

"We need to take care of those..." she stared to say before the drones dropped out of the sky. "Nevermind, Garrus took care of those pesky drones." She looked up and gave Garrus a quick thumbs up before she quickly popped up and threw a singularity at one of the group of three Geth before she starting firing at the remaining three.

"Ignore all training and just go all out, Alenko," she yelled over the gunfire. If he acknowledged her, she didn't hear him due to the fact that the combination of two assault rifles and a sniper rifle along with whatever weapons the Geth had drowned out whatever he said to her. She concentrated on the three Geth that weren't caught in the Singularity for the time being until it ran out.

She glanced over at the three a few moments after the Singularity ran out and found that two of the three were down (more than like by Garrus' trusty sniper rifle). One of them was crawling towards them and she quickly took care of it with a few short blasts from her assault rifle. After scanning the area she nodded her head and looked up at Garrus. "Alright, let's get you out of there," she said as she started to raise her hand up but stopped as she thought she heard something.

"Something wrong, Commander?" Kaidan asked.

"I thought..." she started to say as she turned and saw a blue barrier field to the left of where they were having the fire fight. "I didn't see that. Did you see that?"

"I did but those Geth appeared out of nowhere I figured I would tell you about it when we took care of them," Garrus said from his elevator perch.

"Is there...there is someone inside of that barrier, Commander," Kaidan said as he pointed to a figure that Kathleen could barely see from where she was standing.

"Damn it," Kathleen muttered under her breath as she approached the blue barrier.

"Oh, thank the Goddess," the figure said in a slightly muffled voice. "I thought I was going to die in here."

"Doctor T'Soni?" Kathleen asked in a hesitant voice.

"Hey, a little help here, Shepard?" Garrus asked as he leaned over the edge of the elevator door. "I am pretty sure that she is safe for now. Meanwhile I am still stuck up here in the elevator."

Kathleen shook her head as she fired a few times at the cables that ran below the elevator. A few seconds later, there was a crash and a thud. "Gee, thanks," came a grunt from inside the now slightly damaged elevator. "Now we can't use this to get back to the surface."

"I don't think we were going to be able to use it even if we had been able to get it down. I am not sure if we can turn off that barrier from this side," Kathleen said as she approached the barrier cautiously. "So, how did you end up in this pickle?"

"I am not sure what you mean by 'pickle'? If you mean how I ended up behind this barrier with no way out I think I might have pressed a button I shouldn't have and I got caught in a gravitation field," Doctor T'Soni stated in a slightly confused voice.

Kathleen peered through the shimmering barrier to see that the Asari wasn't just behind the barrier but she was suspended a few feet above the ground. She looked around for a control panel of some sort before she heard the Asari say something to her.

"I don't think you will find anything on your end that will help me," the Asari said. "There is another floor beneath us that the elevator doesn't go to. The stairwell at the far end of the passage will get you down there but be careful. I think there might be a Krogan down here with the Geth."

"Great, just what I needed to hear," Kathleen said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
"Is that what I think it is?"

"Yup."

"Are we...."

"Oh, yeah."

Kathleen rubbed her hands together as she walked over to a large mining laser located conveniently near another barrier that was just beneath the one that Doctor T'Soni was underneath. She figured that the little cubby areas that the Asari was underneath had some sort of purpose that the Protheans used back when they were still around and alive. Maybe living quarters? Whatever they were used for they were useless now and the barrier was just getting in the way.

"Wait, Shepard," Kaidan said in a confused voice. "What if we just run into another barrier?"

"Let's just hope that we drill behind said barrier," Kathleen said. "Alright, let's do this." She pressed a few buttons and the drill activated. A few short moments later, the drill turned off and the trio turned to where the drill bored into and saw a wide hole that lead down into somewhere unknown underneath of the barrier chamber on their current level.

"Alright, moment of truth. Let's see if we made it into another one of these chambers on another level that we or Doctor T'Soni don't know about."

A few moments later they fell down into a chamber similar to the other two. Kathleen dusted herself off and looked around to see that they were on the other side of the barrier. She glanced towards the back of the chamber to find it open.

"Alright, now we are talking," she said with a grin as she walked out of the chamber and towards a small control panel.

"Now what?" Garrus asked. "We just got ourselves stuck on this side of the barrier."

"Now we get Doctor T'Soni free of her invisible restraints and then we find a way out of this place," she said as she pressed a few buttons on the panel as soon as Garrus and Kaidan got on the platform beside her. She had to hold onto the panel as the platform suddenly started to move upward and then stopped two floors up.

"Alright, elevator got it," she said to herself as she turned around and walked towards the Asari.

"Wait, what?" T'Soni said as she turned her head slightly back to look at the approaching Spectre. "I didn't think there was any way past those barriers."

"I used the mining drill on the other floor that I used to get past the other barriers," Kathleen explained as she approached the control panel. "So, what button do I press to get you down?"

She could see T'Soni craning her head to see the panel and she frowned slightly as she studied the panel carefully. "That one square-looking button next to your right hand," T'Soni said confidently.

"Alright," Kathleen said. "Get ready. I am going to press it now." She waited a few moments before she lightly tapped the button. She heard a thud and a grunt before she turned around to see T'Soni standing up shakily.

"Let's get out of here," Kathleen said as she lightly grabbed one of the Asari's arms. "I really don't want to run into any more of Saren's thugs and I really don't want to face any consequences of what that mining drill might have done to this dig site if there was any."

"Considering that the dig site is on top of an active lava pit, I am pretty sure the chances of anything catastrophic happening are pretty high," T'Soni said as she let herself be led towards the center platform by Kathleen.

"Joker, have the Normandy ready for us in five minutes," Kathleen commed the ship's pilot.

 _"Affirmative, Commander,"_ came the short response before the comm was cut off.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
The elevator ride up to the surface seemed to be the slowest and longest one that Kathleen had ever been on and she had been on long elevator rides before. She could feel tremors starting to form underneath of the platform. Stress was starting to form and she could feel one of her feet starting to thud against the floor of the platform before she forced herself to stand still.

'Calm down, Kat,' she thought to herself. 'You are going to get out of here in one piece...hopefully.'

As soon as the platform stopped at the top, she could tell that trouble was already waiting for them in the form of the Krogan that T'Soni had told them about.

"Ah, you've delivered the Asari right to us, Commander," the Krogan said in a pleased tone of voice.

Kathleen started to say something when a large tremor cut off whatever she was going to say. She frowned at the Krogan and thought to herself 'fuck this' as she fired off a Biotic attack at the Krogan, knocking him off balance.

"Run!" she yelled, as she shoved T'Soni forward, past the vulnerable Krogan. She waited for Garrus and Kaidan to go past her before she followed after them as she fired off another Biotic burst at the Krogan to make sure that he stayed down.

She could feel the dig site coming down around them as she ran up the short platform that lead towards the secondary entrance of the site. She could see that the others made it out alright and she put forth a burst of energy to run faster so that she could catch up with them and not die in the rubble that was crumbling around her.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
_"Hey, Commander, you know the ship doesn't do well with lava, right?"_ she heard Joker say in the comm room.

"Yeah, I know but I knew you could get us out of there in time," she said as she sat down in an empty chair. She looked around the full room as she inwardly sighed. She hadn't expected to pick up another crew member but at least Saren wasn't able to get his talon's on the Matriarch's daughter.

"Is this something you humans do on a daily basis? We almost got killed and your pilot jokes about it," Kathleen heard T'Soni say in a shocked tone of voice.

"It's how he copes with stress," Kathleen stated with a shrug. "You'll get used to it."

"I sure hope so," Garrus said. "Because I really don't like anyone joking with my life."

"So, do you know anything about why Saren wanted you other than the fact that your mother is with him?" Kathleen crossed her arms in front of her chest and frowned slightly at the Asari.

"No, I don't," T'Soni stated. "I haven't talked to my mother in years. Not since I got my archeology degree."

Kathleen nodded. "Alright. Before I let you go, I want you to get checked out by Chakwas. Just to make sure everything is alright and the stress of today didn't affect your health."

"Alright, I could do with a short rest and food as well. I was in that barrier for a while," T'Soni said before she left the comm room.

"Alright, the rest of you get some rest. Dismissed," Kathleen said.

_"Hey, the Council is on the comm. Do you want me to patch them in?"_

"Can you tell them to call back in an hour? I need to get something to get first before I pass out," Kathleen said to her comm.

_" Alright, Shepard."_

Kathleen sighed as she waited for the comm room to empty out before she curled up into a ball in the chair she was in. _'Damn it. I hate today,'_ she thought to herself. _'At least it is over.'_


	9. Sound of Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kathleen gets some downtime to clean the Mako and Garrus tries to have a little chat with her.

Kathleen leaned against the cold metal inside the Mako as she focused on scrubbing the floor with a hard bristle brush. She had snuck inside of the Mako while no one was looking and found that it hadn't been cleaned yet about an hour ago and figured she would clean the inside of the vehicle herself instead of waiting for someone else to do that for her. It was, after all, her fault for letting the Mako get dirty in the first place. She was the one that had made Garrus empty the contents of his stomach in the Mako while they were racing to get Doctor T'Soni from the Geth, and Saren's, grasp.

 

She heard a voice from behind her and she jumped up and hit her head on the roof. Muttering a few curse words under her breath in both English and German, she half turned to see who it was, a stern lecture already forming in her head to whomever was interrupting her "chore" when she noticed that it was Garrus who had snuck in behind her.

 

"Sorry, Shepard, I was going to clean that up as soon as I got some food in my stomach," he said as he sat down in a chair beside her. He gently leaned forward and brushed a talon against her head and Kathleen had to force herself to stay put. She knew that he was only looking to see if she had injured herself but instinct was telling her to pull away from him instead of towards him. _'What is wrong with me?'_ she thought to herself bitterly. _'He isn't the enemy though he shouldn't have snuck in the Mako like that. I could have shot him if I had a weapon on hand.'_ Not that she would have. She knew that everyone on board would have been an ally....unless a Geth managed to sneak onboard while the sensors were down.

 

"It's okay," she said as she started scrubbing at the blue stain on the floor with a little bit more effort than she was giving it a few moments ago. "I didn't want this to dry up any more than I already had in the time between us getting off of that death planet and after the debriefing with Doctor T'Soni."

 

"Have you actually gone and talked to her, Shepard? I mean, talked actual conversation since she has gotten onto the Normandy?" Garrus asked as he studied her cleaning the stain. "She isn't like her mother at all."

 

Kathleen suppressed an aggressive sigh as she dipped the brush in a pail of lukewarm water (Kathleen swore it had been scalding hot an hour ago) before she practically started attacking the stain. She felt a talon close around her wrist and she looked up at Garrus who gently plucked the brush from her hands. "I think you got everything you can clean from the floor of the Mako. I am pretty sure that stain is going to stay there until it gets worn away from constant stomping of whoever is going to use it on any missions between now and whenever we catch Saren."

 

He let go of her hand as he dropped the brush into the pail and shoved it to the other side of the Mako. "So, why don't you tell me what is bothering you so much right now, Shepard?"

 

Kathleen carefully slid into one of the empty chairs opposite of Garrus (she could feed her leg muscle protesting against it since she had been cramped up in the Mako for so long) as she nibbled on a thumbnail gingerly. She wanted to tell him her inner thoughts at how she was falling in love with him, how she didn't really trust Doctor T'Soni at the moment just in case that Saren had gotten to her before they did and had swayed her to his side but told her to convince Kathleen that she was on the Alliance's side until the last minute, and that she wasn't really sure that she would catch Saren.

 

She looked up to see Garrus looking at her with his head tilted slightly to one side. His mannerism resembled something a raven would do back on Earth but she kept that remark to herself. She shook her head as she kept her thoughts to herself.

 

"Alright, then why don't you tell me why you cleaned up the Mako when other people could have done it for you. I know that there are at least a dozen other things that require your attention more than this."

 

"This was something that required my attention," was Kathleen's immediate response before she reached for the pail but she was blocked by Garrus' body. 

 

"No, Shepard, this isn't something that is high on your list and you know it. Seeing the Asari is higher on that list than cleaning the Mako. Giving your report to your higher ups back on Earth is even more important than that right now. Why don't you tell me why you are avoiding all of that and hiding in the Mako," Garrus asked in a slightly disapproving tone of voice.

 

Kathleen winced at his words and she opened her mouth to respond but she quickly closed it when she heard some banging coming from the other side of the Mako. She looked past Garrus to see Ashley looking inside of the Mako with a frown on her face.

 

"Commander, Joker was trying to contact you for the past ten minutes. He has an urgent message from Admiral Hackett and it requires your immediate attention," Ashley said before she gave Garrus a sneer as she walked away from the Mako. Kathleen mentally slapped herself. She had forgotten that she had turned off her omnitool so that she could clean the Mako in peace. She didn't realize that it would take he this long to clean it but at least she managed to keep the peace for an hour.

 

Sighing, she praised Ashley's untimely interruption as she slid past Garrus. "Sorry but this conversation has got to wait a bit. I am going to have to see what Hackett wants from me." And before Garrus could protest, she slipped out of the Mako and headed towards the elevator at the front of the cargo hold for her meeting with Hackett.


	10. Bring Down The Sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kathleen goes to Asteroid X57 to turn off what seemed like malfunctioning fusion torches but discovers it is something much more than that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry for the long delay inbetween chapters. I got writer's block. Next chapter shouldn't take too long since that one is already finished. Not sure about the rest of the fanfic. I am going to try and finish it this month during Campnanowrimo

Kathleen's body felt unusually heavy as she tried to lift herself off of the hard dirt ground that she was laying on. Her ears were ringing loudly, almost too loud for her to hear a voice coming from her comm on her omnitool. She rubbed her head gingerly as she lifted her head up and observed her surroundings. She could see blackened soil around her and she was thankful that she had been thrown away from whatever had made the explosion rather than towards it. She was supposed to be on a mission to prevent an asteroid from crashing into a nearby planet. She didn't expect that Batarian slavers were involved.

Kathleen carefully got into a kneeling position before she started to rub her ears gently. The ringing just wouldn't stop. She could hear the voice still saying her name over and over again and she recognized it as Joker's voice. Before she could respond she hear a very violent curse word emit from the comm and then Garrus' voice. _"Commander Shepard,"_ he said before he paused for a few moments. _"That's how it is done, Joker. You need to give her time to respond."_

_"I have been giving her time. It has been over ten minutes since that blasted ring of blasting mines exploded on her,"_ she heard Joker respond to Garrus.

"Well, I haven't really been conscious for more than a minute, Joker," she responded back. "Getting blasted back about fifty feet from the original blast zone will do that to you."

_"Oh thank God you are alive,"_ Joker said in a relieved tone of voice. " _Are you hurt?"_

Kathleen looked down at her body and noticed that there was a wet spot on the left side of her stomach. She gingerly pressed against it and felt pain. "Just my pride," she said, lying through her teeth. She didn't want Joker or Garrus to worry about her too much. She glanced around for Kaidan and Wrex, the two squad mates that she had brought along with her on this mission, but she didn't see them in the immediate location of where she was located. "Hey, can you ping Wrex and Alenko's omnitools for me. I don't see them at all. I was certain they were a little bit away from me when the mines went off due to those stupid Batarians but they aren't here at all." She glanced in the direction that they had left the Mako and found it to be where it was supposed to be. "And before you ask, no they didn't take the Mako. It is still here."

_"Damn,"_ Joker responded back. _"Give me a few minutes to find them, Commander. In the meantime, I highly suggest you take that you turn off that fusion torch before the asteroid hits that planet. I am sure you can do it in under ten minutes, Commander. I have faith in you."_ The comms went silent after that and Kathleen hauled herself onto her feet. She could feel the pang of pain from her wound on her abdomen but she had more dire things to worry about at the moment. She was certain her armor would keep the majority of her blood in her body right now. She had to save this asteroid and the planet that it was heading towards.

Of course the only reason why she was stuck on this asteroid was because the Normandy was the fastest ship in the Alliance fleet that could get to it before it stuck into Terra Nova. It wasn't like she had a choice in the matter to say no to Admiral Hackett. Of course he had asked her first but it was more like a formality for him to ask. Also she didn't want to look bad in the Admiral's eyes so she had to take up this mission. But that was when she had very little information about the mission. But after they had taken the first two of the three fusion torches offline it was clear that this wasn't a random act of mishap that made the asteroid go off course. Kathleen had learned through communication with a scientist that had escaped her captives that it was a group of Batarians that had high-jacked the asteroid for some reason that was only known to them and was attempting a mass killing of millions of humans on Terra Nova.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
The moment that Kathleen saw the facility, she knew it was going to be trouble. She parked the Mako just out of range of it and walked the half a mile hike to it. She could feel the stabbing pain in her gut but she ignored it. She would have to stick it out for a little while longer until she could free both the hostages and her two team-mates that came with her.

 

Moments later, she walked up an elevated platform and came face to face with a large Batarian. He frowned at her as she crossed her arms in front of her chest.

 

“I believe you have something of mine,” she said in a stern voice.

 

“I have nothing of yours, Human,” the Batarian said in an equally stern voice. “You have no idea what you have done by coming here.”

 

“Oh, I think I do, “she said as she inclined her head a bit. “You sabotaged something my kind was transporting to the planet for resources for an unknown reason and you kidnapped the people that were working on said asteroid. When my people and I tried to stop it because we thought it was a mere malfunction in the hardware of the fusion torches, two of your people suicided by taking out the blasting mines that was surrounding one of the torches. Am I right?”

 

“We have a purpose that is none of your business that involves this asteroid and those people down on that planet,” the Batarian barked at her. “Now that you have gotten yourself and your people involved in this ordeal, you will have to die with the hostages to keep your silence.”

 

She frowned at the Batarian as she fingered her pistol on her hip. “We can either do this the hard way or the easy way. I’d rather we do it the easy way where I take you into custody and claim the hostages that you have and no one dies but that is all up to you.”

 

She watched as the Batarian turned what Kathleen supposed was his second-in-command and discussed things in hushed whispers for a few moments. That gave her a chance to scout out the facility. It was then that she noticed a warhead in a corner of one of the upper levels. She silently cursed to herself and realized that they had no plan of leaving this facility in one piece.

 

After she spotted a second warhead on the same level as her and the Batarians, she heard the Batarian clear his throat in front of her and she focused her attention on him.

 

“No deal,” the Batarian said with a smirk. “I see you already spotted a few of the bombs that we have in place in this facility. If you want to leave here alive with the hostages that we have, including the two team-mates that you brought on this blasted asteroid, then you better let me leave here alive with the rest of my people that I brought.”

 

“Alliance doesn’t deal with terrorists,” Kathleen said in a bland tone of voice.

 

“I’m not dealing with the whole of the Alliance, now am I?” The Batarian chuckled under his breath. “I am dealing with you. Now, you have three minutes to decide before I activate all of the bombs in this building and I leave anyways without your permission.”

 

Kathleen stared at him, wondering if the Batarian was bluffing, but when his second-in-command said two minutes remaining she knew it wasn’t a bluff. She glanced around the building again briefly before turning to one side and jutting her head towards the entrance.

 

“Go but if I see you again anytime soon you are going to get a bullet between your eyes,” she said bitterly.

 

“Remember the name Balak, Human,” the Batarian said as he walked past her. The rest of his crew followed suit right behind her. She waited a full minute after the Batarians left before she rushed over to the nearest warhead to make sure it was deactivated before she put a few shots in it with her pistol.

 

That got the attention of someone from a nearby room. “Are they gone?” a female voice said in a shaky voice.

 

“Yeah, they are gone,” Kathleen said as she holstered her pistol.

 

“Thank God, Alliance came to save us,” the woman said as she walked out of the room. “There is a Krogan and another Alliance officer in here. They aren’t in good shape but if you have your ship nearby I am sure that we can spare a shuttle to transport them to it.”

 

Kathleen breathed a sigh of relief. “They are actually with me.” She pulled up her comm. “Hey, Joker, I freed the hostages and got Wrex and Alenko back. They need medical attention.”

 

_”Roger, Commander. Sending the shuttle your way now.”_

 

“Do any of you need any medical attention? I can take any injured aboard my ship and bring them back as soon as they are patched up.”

 

The woman shook her head. “We took care of the injured already but we ran out of medigel before your people got here. All we could do was get some make-shift bandages on them before they bled out.”

 

“At least they are safe now,” Kathleen said as she sat down in a nearby chair to wait for the shuttle. She already knew that she would have to write a pretty convincing report to Alliance brass about this incident and her letting go the Batarian terrorists but at least she had the skills to convince even the sternest Admiral that it was worth it in the end to let them go. She hoped that they were convinced it was a good idea, too, and wouldn’t punish her for her decision.

 

Sighing, she leaned back and closed her eyes for a few moments, wishing that this day would finally end on a high note.


	11. Ain't No Rest For The Wicked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kathleen gets summoned by the Council about a recent discovery about Matriarch Benezia. But first she has to tackle a surprise ship inspection from a Rear Admiral.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first time i get to post two back-to-back chapters. let's hope my luck continues. next chapter (or chapters) will be the Noveria mission.

"Ma'am, will all due respect, I think Alenko should have came with us instead of the Turian."

Kathleen stopped in her tracks in the middle of the airlock and spun around to face Ashley with a stern look on her face.

"Williams, like I said before, Alenko is still recovering from our encounter with the Batarians back on Asteroid X57," she said in a stern tone of voice. "Besides, Garrus isn't going to be following us all the way to the Council meeting. He has to check in with C-Sec and see if it is alright for him to tag along with us on the Normandy before we go to Feros." She turned around again and tried to resume walking again but only got a few steps when she heard Garrus say "if that is the case then shouldn't you have stayed behind, too? You did get hurt, too."

"Yes, Garrus, but not as badly as Alenko or Wrex." She started up again but when she heard no footsteps following her, she knew that something was wrong. She looked back at the other woman with the same stern look on her face to see Williams giving Garrus a long, hard stare. "Williams," she said in tone of voice that border-lined on anger. "Do I need to send you back to the ship and get Liara to replace you?"

"No, ma'am," came the sharp response from the Gunnery Chief.

"Good. Then let's...." Kathleen started to say before Ashley suddenly stopped right outside of the airlock and saluted someone that was of higher rank than both of the women. Kathleen inwardly sighed and spun around slowly to see a Rear Admiral standing near the elevator that led down towards C-Sec waiting for them.

 

Kathleen inwardly sighed and wondered why the Rear Admiral was on the Citadel. It was clear that he was here for her and only her. She stopped exactly five feet away from the man and saluted him, keeping the salute until he gave one back, and only then did she slowly lower her arms down to her side and stand at attention. She didn’t dare to look back at the Gunnery Chief to see if she was doing the same but she hoped that for the other woman’s sake that Ashley was doing the same.

 

“So, this is the infamous Commander Shepard,” the Rear Admiral said in a slightly sneering tone of voice.

 

“Yes, sir,” Kathleen responded back in a monotone voice.

 

“I sure hope you are ready for what is coming, Commander,” he said as he leaned towards her a few inches. “I am here to inspect the SSV Normandy to make sure it is up to Alliance snuff.”

 

Kathleen stiffened up a bit at his words but she kept her face emotionless. So, this man felt that the Normandy wasn’t up to Alliance standard, huh? He was going to be in for a rude awakening. She watched as he walked around her and barked at her and Ashley to stay where they were. She noticed a pause where he noticed Garrus but it didn’t last too long because the steps started again a few moments later.

 

She stood stock-still as she waited patiently for the Rear Admiral to get done with his inspection. Should she have warned the others on the ship that he was coming? Sure but that would take the fun out of this surprise inspection. At least they wouldn’t have to face the consequences of his results as soon as he was done with the inspection.

 

Almost an hour later, and much to Kathleen’s disapproval, the Rear Admiral finally emerged from the ship. “It is better than I thought it was,” the Rear Admiral said as he walked around to face Kathleen. “But that drive core in the back is much too large for the ship. And who the hell designed the CIC on the Command Deck that way? It seems like you are ruling over the ship instead of commanding over it.”

 

Kathleen tried to keep her anger from showing but from the look on the Rear Admiral’s face it wsn’t doing much good. “This ship was a collaboration between the Turians as us Humans. The drive core was their idea along with the CIC. They said that it would be a much better idea if the Captain of the ship was at the head and barking orders at their underlings.”

 

“How are you supposed to communicate with said ‘underlings’? Yell at them”

 

“We all have comms in our omnitools that we utilize if we need to communicate with each other,” Kathleen explained in a calm manner. “Or if someone really needs my attention I can always get off of my so-called throne and walk to them.”

 

She heard the Rear Admiral grunt in response before shaking his head. “I still don’t like that drive core.”

 

“We need a powerful drive core for our stealth systems, sir. If it doesn’t get enough power then the stealth systems don’t work as well as they need to. I know it seems like a lot of work for just one ship and a lot of credits were spent when a whole platoon could have been built for what it cost for the Normandy but if you could just see her in action then maybe you can see the benefit of it.”

 

“And wait around on this frigate for a fight? That’s hardly worth my time. Just send me routine reports on this ship and I will be as happy as a so-called clam,” he said before he gave her a stiff salute as he walked briskly to the elevator and took it down to C-Sec headquarters.

 

Kathleen let out a loud sigh and turned around to face the other two behind her.

 

“Geez, what was stuck up his butt?” Ashley asked in a bitter tone of voice.

 

“A Turian’s stick,” Kathleen responded in an equally bitter voice.

 

“You do know Turians don’t really have sticks up our butts, right Shepard?” Garrus said, his voice laced with confusion.

 

“I know but the rest of my kind doesn’t know that,” Kathleen said with a grin. “Let’s get to the Council before they decide to send someone to come find us. I am pretty sure we are going to be late for our meeting with them and I don’t want to give them an excuse as to why we were late when we arrived early to the Citadel.”  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
After Kathleen and Ashley parted ways with Garrus, who went down a level to talk to his supervisor, the two women made their way to a shuttle that would take them to the Citadel Tower where the Council was waiting for them. She had barely reached the steps that would take them up to the Council when Udina stepped out of the shadows and stared at her.

 

“Commander, I heard you had a run in with Batarian slavers on Asteroid X57 yesterday,” he said in a low tone of voice.

 

Kathleen bristled at his voice but chose to ignore it. “Yes, I did. What about it?”

 

“You could have captured the leader of that Batarian gang but instead you let him and the rest of those bastards go. Why?” Udina gave Kathleen a hard stare as he crossed his arms in front of his chest.

 

“Simple answer-they were going to kill the hostages if I didn’t comply with them,” she said as she leaned back slightly as she placed both hands on her hips. “Does that satisfy your curiosity, Ambassador?”

 

“You know the Alliance doesn’t approve of doing deals with terrorists,” he said in a bitter voice.

 

“Lucky for you Alliance brass was on my side with this one. They read my report and said that it was satisfactory enough for them. Besides, if I had a chance to kill those Batarians without setting off all of those bombs that they had around that facility I would have. But then you would be one less Human Spectre and not a step closer to getting a seat on the Council, Ambassador.” Kathleen waited a few moments to see if Udina would move but he stayed as still as a statue. “Now, if you would excuse me, I have a meeting with the Council that I am about to be late for.”

 

“You are already late for it, Commander,” came a snarky response as Udina swept past her and towards the elevator that led out of the Tower.

 

“Asshole,” Kathleen muttered under her breath.

 

“Ma’am,” Ashley said from behind her. “The Council.” Kathleen noticed the other woman pointing at the awaiting Council members as they stared at the empty platform.

 

Sighing, she climbed the final steps and approached the narrow platform that was outstretched in front of the Council. Kathleen was thankful that she wasn’t scared of heights. The lower level that featured a garden-scape from Earth was beautiful but it also seemed to be so far away from where she was standing.

 

“You’re late,” the Turian Councilor said to her in a stern voice.

 

“I’m sorry, Councilor Sparatus. I ran into a few roadblocks on my way over here,” she said in a calm manner. “Now, what is this urgent mission that you need to send me on? I was about to head on over to Feros when I got your message.”

 

“Feros can wait for the time being, Commander,” Councilor Valern stated. “It is Noveria that you need to be concerned with. We got word that Matriarc Benezia got spotted on that planet less than twelve hours ago.”

 

“Do you have any information on how much longer she plans on staying there?” That got Kathleen’s attention. This was the first lead that she had gotten since she started the hunt for Saren.

 

“No but I would say she won’t stay more than a few more days if the business that she went to Noveria isn’t too important. Besides, the situation on Feros isn’t going to decline any more than if you went there today or tomorrow,” Councilor Valern said, a sneer in his voice.

 

Kathleen frowned at his words. She knew that the Geth on Feros was getting more aggressive than they had when the situation had started. The only reason why she knew that was because she got a notice from someone on Feros urging them to come and aid them.

 

“Don’t worry, Commander,” Councilor Tevos said to her with a small smile on her lips. “If you want I can send support to those on Feros to make sure that no more Geth attack them until you get there.”

 

Kathleen shook her head. “No, you already have enough to worry about. I will make sure that my business on Noveria doesn’t take too long so that I can get my report to you before I head out for Feros. Does that sound like a good compromise?”

 

All three Councilors nodded their heads in unison at her suggestion.

 

“Don’t take too long, Commander,” Councilor Sparatus said. “I don’t want Matriarch Benezia to slip through our fingers. This is our only chance to get to her.”

 

“Yes, Councilor,” she said. “Now, if that is all you have for me, may I be dismissed?” Kathleen was itching to leave for Noveria as soon as her feet touched inside of her ship and she didn’t want to waste another moment on the Citadel.

 

“You are dismissed, Commander,” the Turian Councilor said before he turned around and walked away from the other two Councilors.

 

Kathleen practically hopped down the steps and stopped beside Ashley before she glanced at the other woman. Ashley had on a frown and Kat knew that the other woman wasn’t too happy about what had happened with the meeting.

 

“Trust me, Williams,” she said as she started to walk towards the elevator. “It was a hard choice I had to take-either I travel to Noveria by choice and then help out Feros or let Benezia get away. I chose the lesser of the so-called two evils.”

 

“But, ma’am, don’t you think that this is a little too…much? Aren’t you going to spread yourself too thin working yourself hard like this?”

 

Kathleen shook her head. “Don’t worry about me, Williams. I am used to getting little sleep and working long hours like this. Besides, this business on Noveria will be cakewalk.” She walked inside of the elevator and Ashley followed right behind her.

 

“I hope you are right, ma’am,” was the final words the Ashley said before the elevator doors closed behind her.


	12. Entering Noveria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kathleen finally is able to go to Noveria to track down Matriarch Benezia but runs into a bit of a snag. How will she overcome this roadblock?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the long delay in getting this chapter up. Hopefully the next chapter won't take forever and an age to follow this one.

“With all due respect, Commander Shepard, I should be the one going down there with you,” Liara argued with Kathleen for what seemed like the hundredth time.

Kathleen suppressed a sighed and shook her head firmly at the so-called request that the Asari was giving her. “No, Liara, and that is final.”

“Why can’t I go with you?”

“Because it is your mother that is down there, that’s why,” came a slightly harsh response.

“That’s exactly why I need to go with you,” Liara said in a firm voice. “I could try and convince my mother to come with us.”

“Or she could try and convince you to go to her side and try to have you join up with Saren. I don’t know much about what abilities your Matriarchs have but I am not taking any chances in bringing you to Noveria with the off-chance that she might try and lure you to their side.”

Kathleen could see in the corner of her eye the slight pout that Liara was giving her as she examined her weapons on the bench in front of her but she ignored it. If the Asari was going to act like a child when she was being told that she wasn’t being selected to go on this important mission then she would be treated like a child.

“It seems like you really want to be locked away in the brig right about now until I get back,” Kathleen said as she holstered a pistol to her hip. She turned and crossed her arms across her chest.

She resisted the urge to smirk as she noticed Liara shaking her head quickly. “No thanks. I will be in my quarters if anyone needs me.”

_’You mean you will be having a nice little chat with Chakwas while I am down on Noveria trying to figure out why your mother is on that icy planet to begin with,’_ she thought to herself as she watched the Asari walk away from her. Sighing, she picked up her assault rifle, holstered that weapon, too, and waited for her team to arrive so that she could head out and get this assignment over with.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
The moment that Kathleen exited the Normandy, she knew that trouble was just around the corner. She already ran into a bit of a snafu with the ship not having the clearance to land in the Noveria landing area. She thought that the Council would have sent word that she was heading over there on an assignment. At least she had hoped that they had sent word out.

But the moment that she saw the group of armed security at the front of the facility she knew that was wrong. _’Would it have hurt them to send a quick message saying that I was heading over here for a top-secret assignment? Of course it would have. They might have had to explain why I was coming here in the first place. Besides, Saren might have spies in this place other than the Matriarch.’_

She frowned at the head woman, a tall blond, as she walked forward a few steps. “Halt and remove your weapons,” she said with a sneer.

“No, Spectres are allowed to carry weapons anywhere we go as by Council law. You should know this,” Kathleen said as she stood stock-still a few feet away from the security officer.

“Excuse me?” the woman asked, her voice holding a hint of anger and surprise. “What did you just say?”

“I said no,” Kathleen said back as she leaned forward. “As a Council Spectre I am allowed my weapons. Now for my colleagues they have to give up theirs but I can give them mine to borrow if they need to use it but I highly doubt that they need to use them.” She motioned back at Garrus and Wrex, the Krogran glaring at the blond-haired woman as if daring her to take his weapons away from him.

“Like hell is that a Human Spectre,” the woman said.

“Oh, you didn’t hear the news. It was all over the vids,” Kathleen said as she cocked her head to one side.

“We have lives outside of the vids down here,” the woman said as she leaned down towards Kathleen’s shorter body. “I am sure you Citadel people know that.”

“Actually, I am not from the Citadel. I am from Earth,” Kathleen said angrily. “I just came from the Citadel because I went there for an assignment.”

“Oh.”

“But please continue to berate me on how I am one of those Citadel flunkies that knows absolutely nothing about the universe.” Kathleen gave the woman a grin as she tapped the holster of her pistol lightly.

The woman opened her mouth to say something when another voice echoed over a loudspeaker over their heads. “Sergeant Stirling, stand down. Commander Shepard is allowed to carry her weapons with her inside the facility. We have also confirmed her identity with the Citadel Council and she is a Spectre.”

The woman, Sergeant Stirling, gave Kathleen a hard stare before taking a few steps off to the side. “You better watch yourself, _Commander_.”

Kathleen swept past her without glancing at her once and headed inside the facility. She was happy that she didn’t bring Ashely along with her. The gunnery chief would have let her temper get the best of her. She was hoping that Kaidan would have recovered from his injuries by now but Chakwas suggested that he remain on the Normandy for this assignment. _’Maybe it was for the best that he stay on. I do not like the start of this assignment at all,’_ she thought to herself.

She started to head through a narrow hallway when some alarms started to go off. Wincing from the sound, she stopped in her tracks and looked around for someone to turn them off.

“It is okay, Commander. If you can come over here for a moment, I can clear things up with the security system.”

As Kathleen walked over to the counter, she spotted more of the armed security officers around the area and off in the lounge. “Pretty tight security for a small port,” she commented to the new woman.

“The director doesn’t want any of our client’s secrets getting out,” the woman said as she began to type on her keyboard. “I hope you understand that.”

“Clearly,” Kathleen said. “I am here for one person-Matriarch Benezia. Word is that she is here. Do you know of her whereabouts?”

The woman stopped typing for a few moments before she resumed a few moments later. “She was here but she is gone now.”

“Gone? Gone where? Off planet?”

“No, she is still on the planet but she had business on Peak 15 regarding some business for Spectre Saren Arterius.”

“I think you mean former Spectre. He had his Spectre rank stripped of him almost a week ago,” Kathleen stated as she leaned against the counter.

The woman tapped a few keys before nodding her head. “Ah, I see you are correct. I wish that I had confirmed that beforehand but Matriarch Benezia was quite firm and had a note from Saren himself that she was required to go to Peak 15 for some business of some sort. I am not sure what kind and even if I knew I am…”

“Not allowed to say what kind,” Kathleen said, finishing the sentence for the woman. “It’s okay; you were only doing your job.”

“You are quite correct on that, Commander,” the woman said. “Now do you want to inquire to get in touch with the Matriarch?”

Kathleen shrugged. “How long ago did she go to Peak 15?”

“Two, maybe three days ago.”

 

“And you are positive that she might still be up there.”

The woman shrugged slightly. “Honestly, I have no idea if the Matriarch is still alive. The day after she left a blizzard came out of nowhere and knocked out all communication with Peak 15. For all I know she could have gotten a shuttle out of there from the mountain.”

Kathleen huffed under her breath and bit the edge of her thumbnail gently. _’Why do I have a feeling that the Council is sending me on a wild goose chase in order for me to stay out of the whole Feros mess?’_ she thought to herself bitterly.

“I am going to need access to a vehicle so that I can get up there,” Kathleen finally said after a few long, tense moments.

“Uh, Commander, maybe we should go back and…” Garrus started to say but stopped mid-sentence when he saw the look on her face.

“I rather not,” she said flatly.

“Right,” he said as he took a few steps back. “Okay, I guess you have your reasons not to include her.”

“Who?” the woman asked, her curiosity getting the best of her.

“No one,” Kathleen said in the same flat voice. “So, a vehicle, please.”

“Well, for one, the blizzard is still raging on outside. And you are going to need clearance to leave this facility from Administrator Anoleis. He is the one that is in charge of everything you see here.”

Kathleen frowned. _’Well, this is just great. This is yet another obstacle to tackle and another politician to grease palms with.’_ She took a deep breath before nodding her head. “Just…take me to him, please, miss…”

“Parasini,” the woman said with a smile. “Gianna Parasini.”

"Alright, Miss Parasini. Please take me to the administrator." Kathleen wasn't sure if it was the tone of voice that she used or the look she gave the other woman but she noticed that Parasini didn't argue with her and the she spun on her heels and started to head towards a hidden door that lead her out of the check-in desk and out into the main hallway.

"If you would follow me, please," Parasini said as she gestured towards an elevator.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Shepard winced as she heard the hurried voice of a Salarian telling whoever it was to come inside from behind the double doors as Parasini knocked on them loudly. The loudness of said knocks was unnecessary but it did get the attention of the Administrator.

“You can go on in now, Commander. And good luck,” Parasini said with a smile before she turned on her heels and walked away.

Kathleen sighed and turned towards the doors again before she entered the room to face her possible doom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the abrupt ending. I didn't want this chapter to go on for too long.


	13. How Bad Can I Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kathleen runs into a a stand-still when she finds out that she needs to go to Peak 15 to get to Matriarch Benezia. Can she use her wits to get there or does she have to employ the use of Garrus and Wrex to get her way with Administrator Anoleis?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry about skipping the update last week. my writing muse wasn't feeling too kind to me last week. Hopefully the next update will come out sooner than this one did.

“You’re not Parasini,” came a voice from behind a twin set of monitors. The Salarian turned slightly in his chair to face them properly as he steepled his fingers before resting his elbows on the expensive-looking desk. Kathleen wondered how much it cost the Administrator to get that desk to this icy planet.

“You are indeed correct,” Kathleen said with a smile as she walked halfway into the room, Garrus and Wrex a few steps behind her.

“I am going to assume you are the Human Spectre that has requested permission to land here,” the Salarian said as he turned his attention back to his twin monitors. “I am going to tell you this just once-I am not going to give you any private information for any clients that are currently staying here nor am I required to give you said information. The Council has no jurisdiction here at all.”

Kathleen bit the side of her cheek to prevent her from saying anything cheeky to the Administrator. She didn’t want to get in the habit of hating others, especially if they were of an alien species, but this Salarian was starting to grind on her nerves.

She walked up to the desk and leaned against it with one hand pressed against the desk. “I am here for permission to go up to Peak 15.”

“And why would a Human Spectre want to go there? There is nothing of interest to you nor the Council.”

Kathleen bit her tongue from making a snappish comment back before taking a deep breath and she put her other hand on the desk. “The Council has made wind that Matriarch Benezia has recently came through here and went on to Peak 15. They have business with her and have told me to collect her. I don’t know what business they have with her but I have my orders from them.” She smiled at the Salarian but the smile didn’t reach her eyes.

“I am sure you don’t want to get in the Council’s way, right Administrator Anoleis?”

When the Administrator didn’t respond right away, she lifted a hand up and lightly lowered it onto one of the monitors. That got the Salarian’s attention and Kathleen was given a glare from him. She smirked as she gripped the monitor lightly with a few fingers and started to turn it towards her but the Salarian grabbed it with both of his hands and forced it away from her.

“That is private information, Spectre Shepard,” he said in a harsh tone of voice. “You are not allowed to see it.”

“Then give me access to a vehicle so that I can go to Peak 15 and retrieve Matriarch Benezia for the Council,” she said in a flat tone of voice. “Quite frankly, I could have already been out on the road by now if you hadn’t delayed me by denying me this one little request.” She inclined her head to Garrus behind her. “One word and my Turian friend here can hack into your system and get every little detail on your clients that are currently staying here. I don’t want to resort to blackmail but you have left me with no choice.”

She noticed the narrowing of the Salarian’s eyes and she knew that she had him hook, line, and sinker. “Or my Krogan friend can get what I need, too. It is your choice, Administrator.” She smirked at Anoleis and for a moment she thought she could see the wheels turning in his head.

“Fine, have it your way, Spectre Shepard,” he said with a sigh. “I don’t know why the Council wants the Matriarch so badly but if you want access to Peak 15 I will let the docking bay guard know you are on your way over there and to let you through to a vehicle.” He started to work on something that he was clearly working on when he was interrupted by the trio coming into his office when he stopped briefly. “Just…be careful with the blizzard. It is unusually strong for this time of the year.”

“Alright, I will,” Kathleen said before she spun around and walked out of the office. She took a mental note to come back here when time wasn’t so pressing and look into this place further. She noticed that Garrus and Wrex had started to back out of the office after they had gotten the permission they had needed.

After they had exited the office, they noticed Parasini standing up behind her desk. “So, did you get what you needed, Commander?” she asked in a curious tone of voice.

“Not the way that I wanted to but yeah, I did,” Kathleen admitted with a sigh. “I just hope that I am allowed back here again.”

“I am certain you will since you are a Council Spectre,” Parasini said with a smile. “Now the docking bay is on the other side of the complex and to your left. It is up a flight of stairs. There is a Turian guarding the door.”

“Great, more Turians,” Wrex muttered under his breath.

Kathleen nudged him gently with an elbow and he gave her a side-eye.

“Thank you so much for your generosity, miss Parasini,” Kathleen said with a slight bow. “We must really be on our way.”

“Of course. Commander. Be safe out there,” the other woman said before she sat down in her chair and got to work on answering what Kathleen assumed was some emails that needed her attention.

Kathleen strolled out of the Administrator’s ‘waiting room’, if it was called that, and started to head towards the docking bay with Garrus and Wrex a few steps behind her. At least now she was making some headway in gaining ground on finding Matriarch Benezia.


End file.
